(Not So) Grim
by xLion'sRoarx
Summary: A ruined matespritship. A budding moirallegiance. A new planet full of dead trolls. What could go wrong? As it turns out, everything. (Also on AO3 if you want to read with pretty colors.)
1. Karkat: Complain About Your Life

**So here we are again! I needed a break from Death Note (seriously...it seems like all I can write is Death Note fanfiction) so I decided to hop on over here to pass some time. This is just going to be a nice, relaxed story for me to write while I calm down from the utter destruction and angst that was my last piece. Like I mentioned, this is also available on AO3 under the name xDemon_Talex and the same title, so if you like reading with the pesterlogs colored properly then you can head over there and check it out. Happy reading!**

 **(Also, why isn't action a category? I really want to tag this as action and drama. Am I blind?)**

 **Chapter 1: Karkat: Complain About Your Life**

* * *

" _Karkat! Karkat, look out!"_

 _"What…?" He looked up, dazed, but it was far too late to intercept the club that came screaming through the air towards his stomach, smashing into him so hard he was certain he heard a few ribs crack. His feet left the ground just briefly, blood rising in his mouth as he spluttered for breath, and the next moment he was laid out on his back with a shadowy figure towering above him._

 _"Karkat!" that voice screamed again, though he didn't know who it was. It sounded so familiar…he should_ know _that voice._

 _The figure above him growled, another shadow appearing to the right of their head. It took Karkat far too long to figure out that it was a juggling club, dripping sickening rivulets of candy-red down onto his tattered clothing. Not his blood. Not all of it. Who else had shed enough blood to…?_

 _Another voice bled into his rattled think pan. "Get the fuck away from him, you bastard! You've done enough; do you want to kill him? I thought you_ wanted _him!"_

 _Who were they? Who did these voices belong to? Why weren't they helping him?_

 _"Can you even hear me?" one of the voices screeched desperately._

 _The figure above him let out a wheezing sound. The club rose higher above his head, and Karkat found himself staring directly at the end of it. If the other troll brought it down with even half his strength, his skull would cave with little resistance._

 _"No!" someone was begging. "No, please don't—!"_

 _The club came down without hesitation, and Karkat's vision went dark with a sickening crack._

†††

Karkat jolted awake with a hoarse cry, nearly flinging himself off his sleep slat with the harsh jerking of his limbs. He was immediately fighting to free himself from the covers, cursing loudly when they became thoroughly tangled around his horns, not quite small enough to avoid catching on the soft material. At times like this, he cursed Rose and Kanaya and _whoever the hell else_ was working on figuring out how to alchemize recuperacoons and enough sopor slime to go with them. They'd been living in their new universe for months, and not a _single one of them_ had figured out the code. Of course, they probably had more important things to do—building hives, finding new sources of food and water, dealing with emotional trauma— _those_ kinds of things—but whenever Karkat found himself waking up in a screaming fit, he cursed them all.

And what was worse was that waking up this way was becoming an increasingly common thing.

The troll finally disentangled himself from the sheets, swinging his feet over the edge of the sleep slat and taking a moment to just _breathe_ and recover from his nightmare. And _night_ mare _was_ the correct term _—_ after living with the humans for so long, the remaining trolls had decided to flip their sleep schedules to accommodate them. It had been difficult at first, but now no one seemed to care much. Terezi and Kanaya were the only other trolls left alive, after all, and with Terezi off in paradox space searching for Vriska (who he liked to assume was dead, thank you very much), Kanaya was the only troll left on their new planet. And seeing as she was a rainbow drinker, she was naturally inclined to like the daylight anyway. So…actually, Karkat had been the only one that had been forced to adjust to a new sleep schedule.

Maybe that was why he was the only one having the nightmares.

They'd started a few weeks after the new universe had come into existence. At first, everything was good. John had opened the door and led them to the new world, they'd begun building hives, constructing their own little town, making sure the planet's new residents were comfortable. Everyone had been ridiculously happy. Even Terezi, stricken with concern for her missing moirail, had seemed more relaxed.

But then, everything had gone wrong. Terezi had left to search for Vriska, meaning that Kanaya was the only other troll left around—and _she_ mostly kept to the lab with Rose, working on alchemizing basic necessities and _hopefully_ on figuring out how to repopulate using the Matriorb. Dirk and Jake paired off next, and though they were still around, they were always fleeing the town to go on what _they_ called adventures but what Karkat called a colossal waste of time and an excuse to make out without having to watch for prying eyes. Roxy and Callie hung around too, but Karkat didn't really have any interest in talking to them. It was the same with Jane, who liked to spend time in her hive baking things and shoving her creations down the throats of her fellow humans. Jade still lived in the immediate area, too, and while Karkat was almost ready to admit that he _may_ have sported a bit of a flushcrush for the human at one point, those days were long behind him and he didn't really have any interest in talking to her. Besides, he doubted she would want to say anything to him after everything that had gone down between them in the past. He still wasn't proud of how much of an asshole past Karkat had been.

That left John and… _Dave_.

John was the same as he'd always been. Bright and excitable and always flying around trying to help people. Of course, he normally just ended up knocking things down and making a mess, but no one could resist him with that goofy smile on his face. He was just so _busy,_ scrambling around and trying to see everything all at once and never settling down for more than a few minutes before he was up and buzzing away like one of those pesky lightningbeasts he'd freed from beneath the clouds. During those first few weeks, back before Karkat had locked himself away in his hive and decided that he'd rather not come out, John had always gone out of his way to ask how he was doing. But now that he was busy exploring, John had been too focused to spare any time to say hello. Not that it was his fault—Karkat didn't really go outside much to begin with, and John wasn't around all that often either, so they just…didn't really run into each other that much. Sometimes Karkat would troll him late at night when he was feeling particularly down, but that was the extent of their interaction.

And then…there was Dave.

Karkat winced. Things were… _complicated_ , there. Before, when they were all hanging around on the meteor, they'd been best pals. Dave's words, not his. They'd spent so much time together, and he'd really thought that maybe…

His computer dinged. _Speak of the devil._

He pushed himself to his feet, stretching his arms over his head just briefly before wandering over to his husktop and checking trollian. Then he frowned, seeing that it wasn't Dave at all; it was _Kanaya_. What did she want?

\- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

GA: Karkat

GA: Karkat Are You There

GA: Well Even If You Are Not I Feel That A Report On Our Progress Is Long Overdue

GA: Its Been Weeks Since We Last Spoke

CG: YEAH YEAH JUST HOLD YOUR FUCKING HOOFBEASTS FOR ONE MINUTE

GA: Very Well

GA: They Are Being Held

CG: . . .

CG: OKAY

CG: NOW WHAT DO YOU WANT?

CG: A REPORT ON WHAT?

GA: After Our Last Chat It Became Clear That You Were Interested In When We Would Be Able To Alchemize Recuperacoons For The Remaining Trolls

GA: Or Rather You Yelled At Me In Frustration That We Had Not Yet Accomplished Such A "Fucking Minor Task"

GA: I Thought You Might Want To Hear How We Were Doing

GA: Like I Said

GA: You Havent Been Around For Weeks So I Never Got To Tell You Anything

CG: OH

CG: OH YEAH FUCK SORRY ABOUT THAT

CG: I'VE BEEN DISTRACTED.

GA: Distracted By What

GA: Ive Heard You Dont Leave Your Hive

CG: NEVER MIND THAT, JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU'VE GOT.

CG: DID YOU FIGURE IT OUT?

CG: CAN I FINALLY GO TO SLEEP WITHOUT WANTING TO FORCIBLY EJECT EVERYTHING FROM MY INTESTINAL TRACT THE INSTANT I WAKE UP?

CG: BEACUSE I'M NOT GONNA LIE, THAT WOULD BE REALLY FUCKING GREAT

CG: LIKE, LEVELS OF GREAT SO INTENSE THAT NOT EVEN STRIDER'S SUNGLASSES WOULD BE ABLE TO PROTECT HIS PATHETIC OPTICS FROM THE GLARE

GA: Weve Made Progress

CG: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN

CG: "PROGRESS"

CG: BECAUSE IT SOUNDS LIKE A WHOLE LOT OF FUCKING NOTHING FROM WHERE I'M STANDING.

CG: SITTING.

CG: WHATEVER.

GA: It

GA: Would Seem That Way Yes

GA: We Managed To Create Something Vaguely Resembling Sopor Slime But It Burned My Skin On Contact

GA: And It Also Burned Rose So I Suspect That It Has Nothing To Do With What I Am

GA: A Rainbow Drinker That Is To Say

CG: WELL THAT'S JUST GREAT

CG: I APPRECIATE THE SENTIMENT, BUT MAYBE YOU COULD SPEND LESS TIME TALKING TO ME ABOUT FUCK ALL AND WORK ON ALCHEMIZING SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T MELT YOUR FUCKING SKIN OFF THE MOMENT IT TOUCHES YOU  
CG: THOUGH TO BE HONEST, THAT'S STARTING TO SOUND REALLY APPEALING RIGHT ABOUT NOW

GA: Im Sorry If Youre In Any Kind Of Discomfort Because Of Our Actions

GA: Were Working As Hard As We Can But There Are Also Other Things We Have To Worry About

GA: Building A New World From Scratch Isnt As Easy As We Hoped

CG: YEAH I NOTICED

CG: IT'S HARDER WHEN YOU CAN'T SLEEP FOR MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES WITHOUT BEING ASSAULTED BY IMAGES OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS TEARING YOUR ORGANS OUT THROUGH YOUR WASTE CHUTE, OR MAYBE YOUR PROTEIN CHUTE IF THE UNIVERSE IS FEELING PARTICULARLY BENEVOLENT THAT DAY.

CG: BUT YOU KNOW

CG: MAYBE THAT'S JUST ME BEING OVERDRAMATIC.

GA: Karkat If You Need To Talk To Someone Im Here

GA: You Can Message Me Whenever You Want

CG: YEAH AS IF

CG: YOU'RE ALWAYS WITH ROSE NOW, IT'S A MIRACLE IF I CAN GET YOUR ATTENTION

CG: SO BUSY ALCHEMIZING EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE ONE THING THAT WOULD ACTUALLY HELP ME

GA: ...

CG: WAIT

CG: FUCK

CG: I'M SORRY

CG: THAT WASN'T RIGHT

CG: LOOK, KANAYA I KNOW YOU'RE DOING REAL IMPORTANT SHIT OVER THERE, I SWEAR I DO.

CG: I KNOW YOU'RE DOING EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO MAKE THIS WORLD BETTER FOR EVERYONE AND I'M JUST BEING A HUGE FUCKASS ABOUT IT BECAUSE OF A FEW NIGHTMARES

CG: SO SORRY ABOUT THAT

CG: BUT SERIOUSLY

CG: IF YOU MANAGE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO ALCHEMIZE RECUPERACOONS OR SLIME OR ANY OF THAT BULLSHIT

CG: JUST LET ME KNOW.

GA: Of Course

GA: Youll Be The First To Know

GA: Just

GA: Message Me If Things Get Bad

GA: Or Worse

CG: YEAH RIGHT WILL DO

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] -

Karkat groaned, banging his head into the desk. _Idiot!_ He'd asked Kanaya _weeks_ ago to keep him updated on how all the alchemizing buffoonery was going, and then he just _had_ to go and snap at her the instant she tried to do just that. He was a horrible friend.

 _Not my fault,_ he tried to remind himself. _I've been on edge ever since the nightmares started; I can't be blamed if I'm a bit more irritable than normal._

That didn't make him feel better, though. What he really wanted was to message Dave, but things were weird between them at the moment and he didn't want to make it worse.

He sat there at his desk. Stared at his trollian window. Tapped his foot impatiently.

Okay, _fine!_

\- carcinoGeneticist [GC] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

CG: HEY ASSHOLE ARE YOU THERE?

Karkat leaned back, staring at the tiny window in hopes of a response. Then he leaned forward again, agitated, and banged out another message on his poor, abused keyboard.

CG: HEY ASSHOLE ARE YOU THERE?

CG: ANSWER ME

CG: DAVE

CG: I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOG IF YOU DON'T ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW I AM GOING TO DO AN ACROBATIC FUCKING PIROUETTE STRAIGHT OFF THE EDGE OF A FUCKING CLIFF AND PLUMMET TO MY DEATH.

CG: DAVE

CG: ARE YOU ACTUALLY NOT THERE OR ARE YOU JUST FUCKING WITH ME?

CG: ...

No response. He curled one arm around his midsection as if that could hold in the dull ache that was beginning to build there. He was tempted to just sit there, wallow in the bitterness that was being forced to watch his _best pal_ ignoring the shit out of him, but he knew that would get him nowhere and he was _not_ one for wallowing. And so he ceased trolling Dave and pushed himself away from his husktop, getting to his feet and firmly closing the lid. His fingers weren't shaking. They _weren't_. It wasn't as if this mattered, anyway—he still had a mini computing device that John had forced on him when they'd first come to the new universe, so he wouldn't be missing any trollian notifications. _Unfortunately_.

He peered out his respiteblock window, not sure if he should feel pleased or irritated at how impossibly bright and clear it was outside. It was a beautiful day by human standards. Maybe he should venture out today, see what everyone was up to. He hadn't been out in a while, except to head out into the surrounding wilderness and just sort of hang about listlessly. There was a beautiful range of cliffs nearby that gave way to the ocean, and he'd claimed that expanse of space as his own. He wasn't really sure what he was _waiting_ for, standing around by the cliff like he did so often.

Wait, no—that was a lie. He was waiting for Dave to get his _fucking head out of his waste chute_ and come talk to him like an adult instead of running like a coward.

 _Honestly_.

Karkat glanced down at himself, checking to make sure what he was wearing was acceptable. He'd slept in the clothes he was wearing now—his usual black Cancer shirt and gray pants—but they looked pretty clean, and he was fairly certain they didn't stink quite yet. He should be fine.

He made his way down the stairs just outside his respiteblock, passing the empty room that was _supposed_ to be Dave's. The two of them had agreed to live together back when they'd first arrived in the new universe, so they'd worked to design a hive big enough for both of them. There was even a master bedroom down the hall with a bed big enough to fit _both_ of them, but it was obvious that they weren't going to be using _that_ anytime soon. If at all.

Fucking Dave. _Fuck._

Karkat sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. Now was _not_ the time to be thinking about the Knight of Time. Today he was going to go out into the town and see how things were going and _not_ worry about whatever the hell he'd done wrong with Dave.

He pushed open the door to his hive and stepped outside, instinctively tensing as if in preparation for an incoming attack. But then he remembered that he wasn't on Alternia anymore, and his muscles immediately melted into moderate relaxation. He hadn't lived on Alternia for sweeps since entering the game, and still he tensed every time he walked out his front door. It was hard to curb something that had once been a survival instinct. One day, maybe.

He walked further out, eyes raking up and down the other hives in his lawnring. Or, _neighborhood._ The humans called this thing a _neighborhood._ There were several small clusters of hives around here, but Karkat was relatively isolated where he'd chosen to live. His hive stood proudly behind him, while the hive Kanaya shared with Rose rested to the right and Terezi's empty abode towered to the left. There was another empty one beside it, which Terezi had built for Vriska upon her hopeful return. All of the hives were connected by a worn path that then curved through a spattering of trees and joined with the main town, where the majority of the townspeople lived. To the west of town, Dirk and Jake had set up a single shared hive with about twenty massive rooms designated for their mechanical projects. Or rather, _Dirk's_ mechanical projects and _Jake's_ brilliant ability to break all of said projects. It was a massive thing, and it was a miracle that Jade and Jane could live in their hives by them without being kept awake all night by the countless explosions that split the sky with every mistake Jake made. It was a miracle that guy was still alive, really.

Moving on, straight to the east of town stood the hive shared by Roxy and Callie. They were relatively quiet, and Karkat chose to avoid them completely whenever possible. Callie kinda creeped him out, if he was being honest.

Traveling north from town was where John had made his hive. At first it had seemed strange that such a personable guy had made his hive separated from everyone else. But when Dave had decided to move out (which was a strong term, seeing as he hadn't lived with Karkat for more than a few days before getting cold feet and running like an asshole) he'd chosen to build his hive right beside John's to alleviate that separation. They seemed happy there, from what Karkat could tell. He wanted to hate John for the way Dave had chosen to live near _him_ instead of in the hive he'd originally agreed to live in, but he knew it wasn't like that between them, and so he wasn't upset. He didn't think he could hate John if he tried, not anymore. Dave, on the other hand, he was pissed at.

 _Honestly, who the hell does that? Leads a guy along, convinces him he's waxing red for him, agrees to live_ _with him, then just runs away without giving a solid explanation? It can't be because of that fucking_ ridiculous _concept of human homosexuality, can it? I thought Dave was all on board with the whole throwing away labels thing, and just going with what he felt was right! He had that conversation with John that he told me about, and he sounded so ready accept what he was feeling…and then he fucking ran! I should have known he would wimp out at the last moment; humans are pathetic._

He started, realizing that a low growl had started at the back of his throat. Luckily, no one was around to hear it. Obviously Kanaya and Rose weren't in their hive, seeing as they were always at the lab, and Terezi had vowed to stay gone for as long as it took to find Vriska. Karkat was alone in his lawn ring, alone in his hive, and just alone in _general._ That was okay, though. He was used to being alone.

…Kind of.

Actually…not really. He'd gotten pretty used to having Dave around while he was on the meteor, and maybe, _maybe_ he'd felt something of a flushed variety for the human. _Maybe._ Maybe enough to be the one that asked to move in together when they arrived in their new world, and maybe enough to scream at him when he decided to run away at the last moment.

Karkat groaned, rubbing at his eyes, careful of his claws. He'd really made a mess of things, hadn't he?

Damn, he wished he had a moirail.

Briefly, he considered messaging Kanaya back to work through whatever bullshit emotions were plaguing his think pan, but he swiftly decided against it. He liked Kanaya, he truly did—but he knew that pale feelings didn't exist on either side of the equation. Kanaya always acted somewhat pale around him, but she was like that with _everyone,_ just like Vriska was constantly slinging spades at anyone that crossed her path.

 _Looks like I'm really about to go right the fuck off the deep end,_ he acknowledged with a laugh. Then he winced, realizing that laughing aloud at his own thoughts was _definitely_ a sign of just how hard he'd jumped off the metaphorical cliff. Deep down, he knew that he needed to talk to Dave, or John, or _someone_ about the nightmares that he'd been having, and their consequent effect on his psychological state. Actually, he was sure that Rose would have a field day with him right about now if he let her get close. But he was determined to _not_ become some kind of weird science-y experiment, and it was with that in mind that he finally wandered towards the center of town.

It was quiet, as usual. The town was still small, containing only a spattering of prospitarians and dersites. The few that lived there seemed content, though, buzzing about peacefully and going about their lives with little conflict. Karkat hadn't bothered to learn any of their names. As he looked around, he was searching only for the other humans and trolls. Er, the other _troll_. He forgot sometimes that his species had been reduced to a shouty asshole, a psychotic blind girl, and a rainbow drinker. And maybe a deranged spider lady, if said spider lady was even still alive. Which again, it would be easier if she _wasn't_.

"Hello there, Karkat!"

He looked up, surprised to hear his name being called from the other side of the street. His eyes raked across messy black hair, buckteeth, and rectangular glasses, and for just a moment his heart leapt as he thought that John had come to speak with him. But then he caught sight of the green eyes behind those glasses, and he realized with a sinking blood pusher just who he was talking to. "Jake." He looked around, almost expecting to be smashed into the ground by a surprise attack at any moment. "Where's Dirk?"

"Oh, were you looking for Strider? Apologies, my good fellow, but I haven't seen him since the sun showed its glorious face above the horizon! We got up to some delightful adventuring last night, you see, and he was right tuckered out when returned home!"

Karkat snorted. "Right. _Adventuring."_

He relished the blush that spread across Jake's features. He hadn't lost his edge when it came to trolling people.

"I say, what are you suggesting?" Jake spluttered, expression entirely too _John_ -like for his tastes. "I'll have you know, sir, that the two of us are strictly—!"

Jake didn't have the chance to finish his sentence before Karkat was suddenly face down in the dirt, an irritatinglyfamiliar weight settled onto his back via a single shoe. He _wished_ he hadn't been through this enough to know exactly what had happened.

 _Fucking Dirk Strider._

"Jake," greeted a smooth voice. "Is this asshole giving you trouble?"

"Come now, was that really necessary?" Jake protested, and Karkat could _feel_ the human's concerned gaze burning into the back of his skull. "Again, Dirk?"

"As soon as he learns to keep that tongue of his sealed away, I'll stop having to grind his face into the dirt." And he just _knew_ those infuriatingly pointy shades were angled his way, because then Dirk was asking, "Are you going to behave yourself if I let you up, or should I let you swallow more grit first?"

Karkat tried to growl, but it came out as more of a groan. He was used to this—Dirk coming out of nowhere and smashing him into the ground the instant he tried to talk to Jake. Of course, that just made the troll want to antagonize him _more,_ which led to Dirk _tackling_ him more, and soon they'd locked into a game that had gotten a hundred times more violent the instant Dave had decided to move out.

Dirk seemed to take his lack of response as an agreement. "That's what I thought."

And now was the point where Dirk vanished, flash stepping over to Jake just as Karkat decaptchalogued his sickles and took a swing at him that he knew would never make contact. He pushed himself up and out of the dirt with a huff, shaking the dust from his clothing like he normally did whenever this happened.

"Now," Dirk sighed, "what was that you were saying, Jake? The two of us are strictly what?"

"Dirk!" Jake yelped. "Come on, I had to say _something_ to the effect of—!"

Karkat looked up just in time to see just the slightest of creases form between Dirk's brows. Ooh, he must have been _truly_ pissed to be showing such emotion. Normally he was a goddamn brick wall.

"We're leaving." Dirk closed a hand on Jake's forearm, pausing to shoot Karkat a burning glare. "Me and my _boyfriend_ kindly request that you stay out of our way. Go vent to John if you need someone to talk to, but don't bother us!"

Then he was gone, vanishing like he always did with Jake in tow.

"Arrogant bastard," Karkat grumbled, only staggering slightly as he righted himself. He'd never been on good terms with Dirk per say, but things had gotten _so much_ _worse_ after Dave had ditched him. Dirk seemed convinced that the whole mess was the troll's fault, which didn't even make any sense because _Dave_ was the one that had run out on _him._ But Dirk was just as much as a stubborn asshole as his relative, and he'd decided that Karkat was the one to blame.

But still…

 _Go vent to John if you need someone to talk to!_

…He had a point.

Stumbling a little as he started walking again, he briefly considered going to John just to talk to _someone_ about these horrible nightmares. Trolls weren't built to withstand keeping such emotions bottled up for very long, thus the need for moirails to exist in the first place. Karkat knew that he was tempting fate by not talking to Kanaya or John or one of the others about it, but he didn't want to bother Kanaya, and going to John meant potentially seeing _Dave_. He thought that if he saw the person that had kick-started his descent into becoming a rambling mess, he might just break down entirely then and there. And he was _not_ going to look weak in front of _him_ of all people. He didn't think he could stand it.

Still, though…he was beginning to feel desperate.

Maybe desperate enough to risk running into Dave.

 _I don't even know if John is home right now,_ he thought, trying to find a way out of doing what he was about to do. _He's probably off gallivanting around the new world, running himself ragged exploring everything. If I go there, I'll just end up facing an empty hive. I should turn back now, maybe take Kanaya's offer._

Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn't going to happen. John's house was just over the rise anyway; he'd already walked the entire length of the village arguing with himself. He'd just stroll on over and take a peek—and if John was nowhere to be found, or if Dave was hanging around in the open, he'd turn around and leave. Make himself scarce for a while, go hang out by the cliffside not too far from his hive. Isolating himself there was a poor substitute for someone to talk to, but still.

Karkat ducked into the trees surrounding the path to the place John and Dave had claimed as their own. He'd keep to the shadows now, scope out the scene before he threw himself headlong into an unpleasant encounter. He slunk his way right down the path until the two hives were in sight, one towering high above the trees, the other sporting only two stories. They provided a sharp contrast, perfectly mirroring the personalities of the people that had built them. Dave, a towering mess of complexities and twisting pathways, and John, with his simple but warm personality.

Now…were the two of them home?

Karkat scanned the clearing surrounding the two hives, raking the space for any sign of movement. For just a moment he thought that his decision had been made easy, and that both humans were out. But then a voice boomed from above, strong and joyous, and Karkat knew that his decision would be a thousand times harder since John was actually _there._

"Dave! Daaaaaave! Get out here, you lazy bum!"

Karkat winced. So Dave was here, was he?

Something crashed loudly inside the multi-story hive, and then a loud string of expletives came flowing from an open window. That was something Dave had picked up from him while they were on the meteor, and something that he hadn't been able to shake since he'd started living with John.

"Oh, gosh! Are you okay?" John flew down a few feet, peering into the open window of Dave's hive.

"Yeah, yeah, just give me a moment, Egbert!" There was another series of small crashes before a familiar head of blond hair appeared, quickly followed by a red-pajama-clad Dave Strider as he threw himself out the window. He caught himself long before he would have hit the ground, rocketing up into the air to hover beside John.

Karkat's blood pusher clenched at the sight of him. He hadn't changed—and of _course_ he hadn't changed; they'd only been apart for a few months! And they _had_ seen each other a few times since then, making brief, awkward eye contact in the streets before flitting away to sulk in peace. There had even been one or two ill-advised trollian conversations, always ending in stilted goodbyes that were quite possibly even more awkward than their strange moments of eye contact. Those conversations had petered off recently, though, as Karkat grew more secluded and Dave seemed happy to hang around John. Again, he wasn't worried. He _wasn't._ He was absolutely not worried that John "I Am Not A Homosexual" Egbert was living in such close quarters with his…his _whatever_ Dave was to him. Maybe nothing, at this point. He wasn't sure.

"Oh, good! Come on, you promised we'd go adventuring today!" John shot several feet into the air, looking around as if trying to decide where to go. He was still wearing those blue pajamas. They were more than free to change out of the damn things now that they were on a new planet and their session had ended, but John seemed far too attached to _ever_ give them up. Dave wasn't really the same way—he wore regular clothing quite often, Karkat remembered—but he still liked to slip back into his god tier pajamas to fly around with John, it seemed. Maybe he liked the cape.

 _Just like Eridan,_ Karkat thought, but then he stopped. That was a dangerous train of thought, as was any that dealt with the dead trolls. _Especially_ any dead trolls that had created _more_ dead trolls before being chainsawed violently in half by Kanaya.

A flicker of movement caught his attention. Dave was flying after John, drifting up into the open air and emoting, "Right…I promised. So where are we headed today, Egbert?"

John said something in return, but Karkat wasn't listening anymore. It was clear that he wasn't going to get to talk to John today, not while he was running around with Dave on a leash.

 _Not jealous,_ he reminded himself again. _Not. They're not like that._

John rocketed off, chattering excitedly and beckoning Dave to follow. The blond followed, too, seeming perfectly content to drift along after his friend. Karkat saw what no one else did, though. He saw the way Dave stopped, not far off from his hive, and looked back with that strange expression on his face. Well, not much of an _expression,_ really—Dave was far too composed for that. Rather, he saw the slight worsening of the downward-turn of his lips, and he saw the gathering of nearly invisible creases that plagued his features. He was concerned. Concerned and searching, for while his eyes weren't visible behind his shades, it was obvious from the turning of his head that he was scanning the earth below. What was he looking for? Was someone supposed to be visiting or something?

Before he could really stop to think about it, Dave was turning and flying away, and his face was no longer visible.

 _He looked so worried…I hope he's okay._ Then he shook his head, remembering that Dave didn't _want_ him to hope he was okay anymore. _Fuck._

Karkat shook himself out of his depressed stupor, angling his body back for the center of town as he started to move. John was busy, Dave didn't want him—so it looked like he was headed to the cliffside. Again.

 _I'll just have to message John later. Hopefully he picks up this time._

He turned. He'd head back through town and try to make himself as small as possible no his way back. If Dirk was around, he didn't want to invite another attack. He just wanted to get back to his hive, duck through into the surrounding forest, and make his way to the cliffside and the ocean below it. As a landdweller, he was hard-coded to be absolutely terrified of the ocean. That was where the sea dwellers lived, and they were _vicious._ Now that they lived in a world where sea dwellers no longer existed, of course, there was really no reason to fear—especially for someone like _him,_ whose fucked up mutations included a grand total of eight gill slits running across his sides. _Eight,_ not the usual six, because apparently even his _mutations_ had mutations, not to mention the fact that the lower two slits didn't even work right and he didn't have gills on his neck to match. He supposed that he should have been thankful for that one, actually. If anyone had been able to see the evidence of his mutations, he never would have lived past grubhood.

He could breathe underwater. He had no reason to be afraid of the ocean. But he _was_ afraid, which was why he went and sat atop the cliffs that dropped away so suddenly into the sea. Maybe it was some kind of sick, self-inflicted punishment for all the mistakes he'd made in the game, or maybe it was a selfish desire to feel _something_ other than anger, even if that something was fear. For whatever reason, though, he always ended up right at the seaside. Ever since things had quieted down, it had been his go-to place to carry out the habit pathetic moping that he couldn't seem to shake.

He had a plan, then. Go home. Find the ocean. Maybe message John later. Try not to think about Dave.

And most importantly, try with all his might to _never_ fall asleep again.


	2. Karkat: Experience Something Strange

**This chapter is ninety percent pesterlog, sorry! I try to format them so they're easier to read, but this site just isn't pesterlog-friendly.**

 **Chapter 2:** **Karkat: Experience Something Strange**

* * *

 **\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling ectoBiologist [EB] -**

 **CG: HEY YOU**

 **CG: I KNOW YOU'RE OUT ADVENTURING, BUT YOU SHOULD MESSAGE ME WHEN YOU GET BACK.**

 **CG: BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE TIME OR WHATEVER.**

 **CG: I CERTAINLY DON'T WANT TO KEEP YOU FROM YOUR ALL-IMPORTANT EXPLORATION OF THIS SACK OF SHIT WORLD WE HAVE HERE.  
CG: BUT. IF YOU HAVE TIME.**

 **CG: MAYBE A CONVERSATION WOULD BE KIND OF...NICE? I GUESS.**

 **CG: I MAY BE HAVING THE WORST FUCKING TIME IMAGINABLE OVER HERE AND DAVE ISN'T MUCH FUN TO TALK TO RIGHT NOW.  
CG: I DON'T EXACTLY HAVE A MOIRAIL AND ALL, SO I'M KIND OF LOST AT SEA.**

 **CG: METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING, AND NOT AT ALL IN REFERENCE TO THE NAUTICALLY THEMED ADVENTURES THAT I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT INTERESTED IN HAVING.**

 **CG: NOT THAT I'M COMING ONTO YOU WITH PALE SOLICITATIONS!**

 **CG: I AM ABSOLUTELY FINE AND NOT AT ALL IN NEED OF A MOIRAIL AT THE CURRENT MOMENT IN TIME.**

 **CG: SO DON'T EVEN FUCKING *THINK* ABOUT STARTING TO PITY ME, PLATONICALLY OR OTHERWISE.**

 **CG: ...**

 **CG: SHIT YOU KNOW WHAT THIS TOTALLY WENT OFF THE RAILS.**

 **CG: MAYBE IT'S BEST IF YOU DON'T READ THIS WHEN YOU FINALLY GET BACK FROM ADVENTURING WITH DAVE.**

 **CG: JUST MESSAGE ME AND DON'T READ ANY OF THIS!**

 **\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB] -**

 **\- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -**

 **EB: karkat!**

 **EB: hey what's wrong?**

 **EB: you sounded kinda...**

 **EB: upset?**

 **EB: are you doing okay?**

 **CG: YES**

 **CG: AS FATE WOULD HAVE IT, I AM ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC RIGHT NOW**

 **CG: NO NEED FOR YOUR INTERFERENCE, I DO SAY!**

 **EB: karkat?**

 **EB: you're acting weird**

 **EB: where are you, anyway? what are you doing?**

 **CG: OH, YOU KNOW, THE USUAL**

 **CG: JUST HANGING AROUND MASSIVE FUCKING BODIES OF WATER WAITING TO FALL IN AND DROWN**

 **CG: BECAUSE DROWNING SOUNDS A HELL OF A LOT MORE APPEALING THAN GOING TO SLEEP AT THIS POINT.**

 **EB: oh yeah!**

 **EB: rose told me about the whole recuperacoon thing.**

 **EB: guess that's kind of a big deal for you guys, huh?**

 **EB: you doing okay without all that slimy stuff to help you sleep? i think rose said something about nightmares when we last spoke**

 **CG: NIGHTMARES? SHE KNOWS ABOUT THOSE? HOW DID SHE FIND OUT?**

 **EB: kanaya, probably.**

 **EB: i mean they're dating**

 **EB: or matesprits or whatever**

 **EB: you knew that, right?**

 **CG: OH**

 **CG: RIGHT**

 **CG: FUCK**

 **EB: karkat you're worrying me here**

 **EB: you've been kinda off ever since dave decided to move out here with me and i can't help but think that maybe you should get out and talk to someone about it**

 **CG: ...**

 **EB: unless**

 **EB: were you trying to talk to me about it?**

 **CG: DEAR SWEET TROLL JEGUS YOU ARE COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS.**

 **EB: what?**

 **CG: THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA.**

 **CG: I'M GOING TO GO FLING MYSELF OFF A FUCKING CLIFF, THEN MAYBE YOU'LL UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M GETTING AT HERE BY THE TIME YOU HAVE TO FISH MY COLD, WATERLOGGED BODY OUT OF THE OCEAN.**

 **CG: SOUND GOOD? GOOD.**

 **CG: TALK TO YOU LATER, FUCKASS.**

 **\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB] -**

 **EB: karkat! wait!**

John stared helplessly at his computer monitor, forehead creased with worry. He'd _finally_ gotten Karkat to actually have a conversation with him, and it had to end like _that?_ What was he doing wrong? They'd been kind of friends before the whole three-year journey thing, and after they'd all settled down on their new planet he'd thought they had a good thing going. A brief hello every now and again, a spattering of conversations…but then Dave had decided to move to the north of town and build a home right next to his, and Karkat had just…well…

 _Shut down._

Those were the only words for it. The troll had never been terribly social before, but once Dave was gone he'd just holed up in his home and refused to come out. John had tried to talk to him, had tried to get _other_ people to talk to him. But Karkat wasn't exactly a well-loved member of their little community, especially not after Dirk started blaming him for the whole debacle with Dave, and so his attempts were never very successful. Eventually he himself had gotten caught up in adventuring and exploring and seeing what the new world had to offer, and he was ashamed to admit that he'd gotten sidetracked.

He remembered having a conversation with Rose not long after Dave moved. She'd said something about recuperacoons, explained that Karkat would start feeling better once he was sleeping well, and John had just kind of taken her word for it. He'd known that something was wrong, seeing as Karkat hadn't really come out of his hive in weeks, only making brief appearances on pesterchum or trollian or whichever chat client he was deciding to use that day, but he'd kept telling himself that _soon_ there would be recuperacoons, _soon_ there would be a healthy amount of that green slime stuff, and _soon_ Karkat would get some sleep and chipper up and go back to being his regular, shouty asshole of a self. But then _soon_ turned into _in a few days_ turned into _in a week or so_ turned into _a few months_ turned into _who knows?_ And Karkat had been getting worse the whole time, but John had been too optimistic to really stop and take a look at the person he'd grown close to all those years ago.

"Maybe you should talk to him?" he'd suggested to Dave at one point, over a healthy game of Mario Kart in front of the television Rose had managed to alchemize a few weeks prior. "He seems really torn up about this whole thing."

Dave had just shrugged, expression as unreadable as always, and muttered, "We weren't even really together. It's his fault if he's upset about me making a perfectly understandable decision."

John wasn't entirely certain that he agreed, but he dropped the subject because Dave was his friend and he didn't want to drive a wedge between them.

But then, as weeks continued to pass, _Dave_ was the one starting to act fidgety. He was such a cool guy that it was hard to pick up on, but John had known Dave for ages. He saw the way he was holding his shoulders just a bit higher than usual, the way he paused just a little too often to push his shades back up his nose when they hadn't started falling down to begin with. This was bothering him too, he was sure of it. And yet no matter what, Dave refused to talk about it. He was just as closed off as Karkat.

In the end, John just didn't really know what to do. And so he adventured, dragging Dave with him to try and take his mind off of the mess he'd helped to create, and he messaged Karkat as often as he could remember with the knowledge that it wasn't nearly enough, hoping that if the troll had _someone_ to yell at he wouldn't be so intent upon self destruction.

 _Can't you talk to him?_ he'd asked Kanaya via pesterchum at one point. _You're the only other troll on world._

 _Yes,_ she'd responded, _I have tried speaking with him, but he insists that he is fine and in no need of assistance._

 _And what do you think?_

Her reply had been less than comforting.

 _His personality has always been dangerously self-destructive, and I believe that if he continues in this way there will be dire consequences for all involved._

Ominous and vague, as always.

And helpful in no way to the one among them who was suffering the most.

†††

Karkat dragged his toes through the sand, watching with mindless fascination as the grains parted around his nails. He'd foregone the cliff today, heading right down to the shore and plopping himself down just out of the reach of the surf. The oceans here worked the same way they had on Alternia, and the tide was already starting to roll in. His pants were damp from sitting on the wet ground, he was up to his nook in sand, and he was entirely uninterested in leaving.

This reminded him of Eridan, and Feferi, and Gamzee. He knew that Feferi would adore the oceans here, so full of kind and beautiful creatures and devoid of murderous lusii. Eridan would probably just be concerned with killing everyone, but it would still be nice to see his ugly mug again. And then…Gamzee. The murder clown. The person that had been his moirail for approximately three days before dumping him flat on his ass. He'd made his hive beside the ocean back on Alternia, where he could go sit by the water and lose himself in the waves.

 _I wish I could see them,_ he thought, well aware that he was moping like a wiggler and not quite willing to care. _It's my poor decisions that led to their deaths, after all—they should have lived, not me._

He winced. _Well…maybe Eridan kinda deserved it? He was a massive fuckass_. _But at least he wanted to talk to me, even if he wanted to talk to_ everyone. _Desperate bastard._ _Feferi, though—she didn't deserve to be blasted to pieces. And Gamzee…not even his weird clown immunity-to-death thing was enough to save him during that final battle._

No one was sure what had happened to Gamzee in the final battle against Lord English and crew. All they knew was that one minute he was fine and locked up in the thermal hull, and the next moment they were dragging his corpse out of the damn thing. He was supposedly invincible, so it had been a bit of a shock. Not even Rose had been able to come up with a solution, making something up about the possibility of Gamzee's death-defying powers vanishing the moment they were out of the game. But then, if that were true, then everyone else's powers should have gone too—and he was completely certain that all the humans were still flying around like idiots while _he_ was forced to keep his feet firmly on the ground.

And damn it, thinking about working legs and feet just made him think of Tavros, the poor guy, and mourning Feferi just made his thoughts flicker to Sollux and Aradia, which took him right back to Eridan, which rocketed him towards Equius and Nepeta.

He missed the other trolls, sometimes. Wished he could see them. Maybe apologize for cursing them all and getting them killed. Because he _had_ gotten them killed, making every wrong decision possible as leader and flinging them headlong into disaster. His team, he knew, probably wouldn't agree with his assessment of events. They would say that that they were doomed to failure from the beginning, that confining twelve members of an inherently violent race (with several _incredibly_ violent highbloods to boot) together would have inevitably ended in tragedy. Karkat, however, knew that it was his fault. It had to be. He was the only one that could be blamed, and _someone_ had to be blamed. He _had_ to blame himself, because he wouldn't be Karkat Vantas if he didn't put himself down at every available opportunity.

…And that just made him think of Sollux again, because he was probably the only other person that hated himself as much as he did. _Fuck._ He missed Sollux. He missed _all_ of those miserable bastards, even the murder fish.

His handheld husktop dinged at his belt. John was pestering him, sending him a successive string of short sentences in an attempt to get him to respond. Deep down he knew that he was just being bitter, wishing for someone's company and then shunning John the instant he tried to message him. But he was irritated, now, glaring out across the waves as that bitterness churned in the core of his very being. _Mood swings,_ he recognized. _An obvious sign that I've been bottling up my emotions for too long._ Soon it would morph into constant irritability, then the nearly uncontrollable urge to destroy everything in his path. He wasn't a highblood—those urges were never going to overtake him to the point of incoherency—but they would still annoy the hell out of him if things got to that point.

His miniature husktop dinged again. John wasn't giving up this time.

Then the thing made a sound that it hadn't made in a long time.

His blood pusher leapt the instant he heard it. He'd programmed his husktop to emit a different sound for every person that could possibly message him, that way he would know ahead of time if he should bother getting up to answer. And _that_ sound…

 **\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -**

 **TG: hey**

 **TG: answer john you dumbass**

Karkat sneered silently. So, he wasn't willing to talk to him except when it concerned John?

 **TG: you're acting like an idiot**

 **TG: you know that right?**

 **TG: like a dog trying to carry one of those massive sticks through a door, but the opening of the doorway is too small so it just keeps beating its head against the door over and over like it thinks the door will get bigger or the stick will get smaller**

 **TG: that's you**

 **TG: you're all vying for attention and shit, but when you finally have him messaging you every five goddamn minutes you can't be bothered to pick up the phone**

 **TG: so to speak**

 **TG: since obviously there's not really a phone, just you and your nubby-horned self hunching over a shitty excuse for a computer**

Another sneer, this one accompanied by a low growl. He wasn't going to leave him alone, was he? He was just going to keep pestering him, again and again until he finally messaged John back. It was a shame, too—he'd been trying desperately to avoid Dave (even if deep down he wanted nothing more than to beat his face in and demand to know why the _fuck_ he'd just ran out on him), and ever since that train wreck of a one-sided conversation with John, he'd been avoiding him, too.

His husktop pinged again. _Gog fucking damn it_ he was going to have to pick up.

 **CG: SO, THE KING OF SHITHEAD ISLAND FINALLY SHOWS HIS FACE.**

 **CG: HOW DOES IT FEEL KNOWING YOU'RE ABSOLUTE GARBAGE?**

 **CG: PRETTY FUCKING GREAT, I BET.**

 **TG: oh god let's not do this man**

 **TG: just message john**

 **CG: OH I'LL MESSAGE HIM ALL RIGHT**

 **CG: AT LEAST NOW I KNOW HOW TO GET YOU TO FINALLY TALK TO ME.**

 **CG: NOT THAT I WANTED TO TALK TO SOMEONE AS INFURIATING AS YOU!**

 **TG: who do you think you're fooling?**

 **TG: i see how often you try to message john, you clearly want to talk to him**

 **TG: now you have what you want, so message him and get off my back**

 **CG: SO ARE WE JUST NEVER GOING TO SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN OR WHAT?**

 **CG: DID I FUCK SOMETHING UP SO COLOSSALLY THAT YOU'RE JUST GOING TO GO GALLIVANTING AROUND WITH JOHN FOREVER?**

 **TG: what?**

 **TG: no dude you didn't do anything wrong**

 **CG: THEN WHY**

 **CG: THE FUCK**

 **CG: DID YOU DO WHAT YOU DID?**

 **TG: it's personal**

 **TG: not up for discussion**

 **CG: OH PARDON ME FOR NOT BEING FUCKING THRILLED THAT YOU REFUSE TO GIVE ME THE SMALLEST BIT OF INFORMATION!**

 **CG: YOU'RE DRIVING ME SHITHIVE MAGGOTS OVER HERE!**

 **TG: karkles stop**

 **TG: seriously**

 **CG: OOH, AND NOW WE'RE BREAKING OUT THE OLD NICKNAMES!**

 **CG: SO SERIOUS, DAVE. DON'T TELL ME THAT YOUR LITERAL BRICK WALL OF A HEART IS BEATING FOR SOMEONE AS FUCKED UP AS ME**

 **TG: not talking about this**

 **CG: WELL THEN BY ALL MEANS, HIDE YOURSELF AWAY IN YOUR HIVE FOR THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE!**

 **CG: RUN FROM YOUR PROBLEMS, DAVE, BECAUSE I CAN TELL YOU FIRSTHAND THAT IT'S THE BEST FUCKING WAY TO HANDLE YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES.**

 **CG: FUCKING EFFECTIVE AS FUCK.**

 **CG: LIKE, CRITICAL HIT ON A BOSS LEVELS OF EFFECTIVE.**

 **CG: A PERFECT ROLL OF VRISKA'S USELESS DICE.**

 **CG: FUCK, IF WE'D HAD THE OVERWHELMING STRENGTH OF YOUR DENIAL ON OUR SIDE WHEN WE'D TAKEN ON JACK, WE WOULD HAVE WIPED HIM OUT IN ONE FELL SWOOP**

 **CG: DROPPED A HUGE HELPING OF DAVE-STRIDER-DENIAL CAKE RIGHT ON THE TOP OF HIS HEAD**

 **CG: HE'D BE AS DEAD AS GAMZEE IN THAT FUCKING FRIDGE**

 **CG: DEAD AS YOU IN MULTIPLE TIMELINES**

 **CG: OR ME, I GUESS**

 **CG: OR ANYONE**

 **CG: WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT, AGAIN?**

 **\- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]**

 **CG: DAVE?**

 **CG: FUCK!**

Karkat nearly slammed his forehead into the nearest hard object as Dave effectively hung up on him in trollian terms. The guy was _insufferable!_ Who did he think he was, messaging him out of nowhere then running the instant things were about to get serious? If he hadn't run, Karkat _finally_ might have been able to get an answer out of him about why he'd suddenly decided to move out and go to live near John!

Karkat cringed as memories of _that_ night suddenly clawed their way across his think pan. The night Dave had run out on him had been the worst night of his life. He didn't like to think about it, probably because he thought that it was his fault. Whatever it was, whatever had made Dave run, it _had_ to be his fault. What else could it have been? It was his fault—but that didn't mean he couldn't be furious at Dave for not talking things out and instead choosing to turn tail and flee to John's side like a kicked barkbeast.

His mini husktop just _wouldn't stop chiming,_ even shoved all the way to the bottom of his sylladex where he'd shoved it after his conversation with Dave _._ John was really getting on his nerves now. Why the hell had he wanted to talk to him in the first place? He should have just accepted Kanaya's offer and spilled everything to her.

He decaptchalogued his husktop again and opened it, making sure to keep it balanced on his knees above the rising tide. The water was barely lapping at his toes, but he was taking no chances. He fired off a quick message to John letting him know that he was _fucking fine, now leave me alone,_ before slamming it shut once again and popping it back into his sylladex. He couldn't deal with John right now. He couldn't deal with _anyone_ right now, he was just _so fucking tired._ He was tired, and he couldn't sleep. He couldn't let himself sleep.

 _I have to get out of here,_ he realized sharply, skin prickling with claustrophobia despite the open landscape. _Leave my husktop at home, go running off into the horizon like a character in a bad romcom. Just fuck off and don't come back until my think pan is on straight._

It probably wouldn't end up like that, he knew. What would probably happen was that he would leave, run into the wilderness, and end up collapsed on the ground as the sheer force of his anger burned him alive.

But he was too stubborn to realize that. All he knew was that he needed _out,_ he needed time to clear his gogdamn head, and he was going to _get_ that time if it was the last thing he did.

Dave could fuck off. He needed this.

Karkat launched to his feet, splashing water up onto his shirt. His shoes were soaked, as were the seat of his pants and the backs of his legs, but he didn't care. He tore through the forest at breakneck speed, reaching his hive without really processing the journey and dumping the contents of his sylladex onto the ground right inside his doorway. Everything went everywhere. His sickles left gouges in his walls, his husktop clattered against the tile, a plethora of odds and ends bounced off the floor and scattered themselves all over the entrance hall. Satisfied with the results, he plucked the last remaining miniaturized husktop from his pocket and chucked it down with the rest, because he was _not_ going to be bothered while he was out burning off steam.

His husktop dinged brokenly from the floor again and he ignored it in favor of tearing through the door, leaving it swinging on its hinges as he bolted for the safety of the surrounding forest.

†††

"Where is he? Why isn't he answering me?"

Dave watched in vague fascination as one John Egbert paced back and forth across the floor of his home, hair sticking up in odd directions, eyes wide and concerned, limbs waving in voiceless exclamations of worry.

"I mean, he was acting so strange earlier, and now he's just…gone! Not answering!"

Dave snorted. "Calm down, dumbass. He's fine, I just talked to him."

"He _answered_ you? And not me?"

"I told him to message you." He shrugged. "Guess he wasn't feeling up to it."

"Well…he _did_ message me, but all he said was that he was fine and to leave him alone! He didn't even curse at me that much, so something _must_ be wrong!"

A noncommittal shrug. "Who knows what's going through that little troll brain of his."

He received a glare in response, only half serious. "Why don't you just talk to him? It's clear that he's bothered by this whole thing, just like you are!"

Dave fidgeted, unnerved. He'd _just_ told Karkat that he didn't want to talk about this with him, and he sure as hell didn't want to talk about it with John. He could mind his own business, and he told him as much. "I don't want to talk to him."

John groaned, rolling his eyes. "You're impossible!"

"And you love me anyways."

"No, _you_ love _Karkat_ anyways. No, don't give me that look! If you'd just talk to him, this would all resolve itself!"

Something bit at his heart, then, but John would never know about it. His expression remained cool, as always. Very cool. The coolest, as a matter of fact. There was no one cooler than him. _No one._

"Dave!" John pushed.

"You're one to talk, mister _I am not a homosexual._ I thought you of all people would understand why I couldn't stay there."

"But Dave, you…you _are_ a homosexual, are you not?"

He groaned, echoing John's earlier tone exactly. "We've talked about this, dude, I'm _me._ I'm the one that was all about throwing out those labels, remember?"

"Yeah, but you still ran away from Karkat. And now he's going insane, and I think you're not far behind!"

"All right, all right!" he snapped. "Look, how about I go to him in person and beat the shit out of him for ignoring you?"

"Wha—no, no, I don't want you to hurt him!"

"It's no trouble. I'll just waltz right on up to him and deck him right in his pretty face."

"Pretty, Dave?"

He winced. _Shit._ "Let's just forget I said that and get on with the punching, yeah?"

"No! I said I didn't want you to hurt him!"

"I can just—"

 _"No!"_ John hissed in a surprising show of irritation. "Just talk to him, Dave! You should have talked to him when this whole mess started!"

That was probably true. Dave had been too embarrassed to talk about why he'd ran out on Karkat at the time, though, preferring to flee from his problems in true Strider fashion. Sure, he was a little guilty that Dirk was apparently blaming Karkat for the mess and terrorizing him whenever he left his house, but it wasn't his fault.

…Okay, it… _may_ have been his fault. Just maybe. Only a little. But Dirk wasn't listening to him, annoying brat that he was, and so Dave had decided to just stay out of it.

"Dave," John said, drawing his attention. "Go check on him."

"Not in the mood to talk."

"Then don't. Just find him, make sure he's okay, and fly off."

Again, he groaned. He knew what John was intending. He thought that when he finally saw Karkat again, he would be unable to resist being drawn into an argument, and that argument would turn into the conversation that would magically fix their tattered relationship. That wasn't going to happen.

Except that it probably was, and John knew it. _Damn_ that knowing smile of his.

Dave pushed himself off the wall he was leaning on, forcing himself into John's personal space and jabbing a finger up under his jaw. "I'll check on him— _only_ check on him—and then I'll be right back here to yell at you for this whole fucking mess. You got that, Egbert?"

A hand settled on his chest, pushing him towards the door. "Fine, fine, just get out of here! Message me the instant you know something!"

He ground out a jumble of incoherent murmurings, feet lifting off the ground as he flew out the door and towards the beach where he knew Karkat liked to relax. _Relax_ being a comparative term, of course, because when the hell did Karkat really _relax_? It was infuriating, but that was something he'd loved about him.

He could already see the water over the treetops. The beach was right below the cliffside, dropping off abruptly into a sandy lip before fading into crisp blue water. Dave darted over the cliffs and looked around boldly, not caring if Karkat saw him. He was _angry,_ damn it, and John was completely right when he said that he would get into an argument with the troll the instant he saw him.

 _Huh…strange._ He drifted closer to the ground, seeing that the water had already consumed most of the beach, and Karkat was nowhere to be found. Funny…he'd been certain that he'd be hanging around here. Maybe he was in his house? Yeah, that was probably it. He was probably hunched over his laptop, blatantly ignoring John and streaming some shitty movie.

With that in mind, Dave shot back up into the air and straight over the tress, locating Karkat's neighborhood with little trouble. He knew that the troll lived mostly alone in this place, with Rose and Kanaya spending most of their time away at the lab and not returning home until the wee hours of the morning, if at all, and Terezi perpetually absent. Karkat had never complained about being alone, but some of the things he'd said to John recently could be construed as concerning. Still…if he was as bad as John made it sound, he would have come to him long ago.

Or…had his pride gotten in the way?

Dave couldn't deny a flicker of guilt as he approached Karkat's home, setting down right outside the front door. He'd deny it to anyone that asked, but he knew that he had caused the poor guy quite a bit of pain when he'd left. It hadn't been his fault, Karkat _had_ to know that. He had to know that Dave was the only one to blame for this mess. He'd been the one too afraid to go through with moving in with him, some deep, subconscious part of his mind needling him with his darkest fears whenever he tried to just be _happy_ and think about living with Karkat permanently. He'd wanted to explain everything to Karkat, of course, but he'd thought that it would just cause him more pain to explain that his own mind was stopping him from being happy. If he did that, then Karkat would think that there was actually hope to work through their problems and stay together, and Dave knew that really wasn't the case. Or no—that probably _was_ the case, they probably _could_ work through it and end up happy together—but getting there would require a ridiculous amount of pain and heartbreak, and Dave wasn't willing to put Karkat through that. He was as fucked up as they came, and staying close to Karkat would no doubt expose the innocent troll to all of his problems and change the guy forever.

That didn't mean he was happy about it.

And it especially didn't mean that he was happy about treating the troll like he was lower than dirt. But if he didn't lash out, didn't make it clear that he wasn't interested in working things out, Karkat wouldn't give up—and if he didn't give up, he'd get hurt.

Dave stepped forward through the open door of Karkat's home (which in and of itself should have been a big red flag right in his face) and wandered towards the living room. Then he winced as his foot crunched down on something, and he peered at the floor. He raised a brow sharply when he saw the scattering of random items across the ground just inside the doorway. Karkat's laptop, a few cell phones, a pair of sickles, a spare set of clothing…the list went on.

What had happened here? It looked like Karkat had just emptied his entire sylladex onto the floor and left the door open in his retreat.

He decaptchalogued his phone with a frown and shot John a message.

 **\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -**

 **TG: hey dude you there?**

 **TG: i found something**

 **EB: dave! what did you find?**

 **EB: nothing bad i hope!**

 **TG: well**

 **TG: i'm not really sure if it's bad or not, but karkat's stuff is just kinda scattered all over the floor, like he just emptied out his sylladex  
TG: left the door open too, he's nowhere in sight**

 **EB: oh no!**

 **EB: i hope he's okay!**

 **EB: he's really nowhere around there?**

 **TG: i mean i don't see him**

 **TG: so it's not really looking good**

 **EB: maybe you should ask around?**

 **EB: go into town and ask a few people if they saw anything**

 **EB: or message them or something**

 **EB: oh, and i'll help too!**

 **EB: i'll message the girls and ask if they heard anything from him**

 **EB: how about you ask the guys?**

 **TG: you do realize that there's only two other guys on this entire planet and it's my brother and his boyfriend, don't you**

 **EB: then you shouldn't have a problem asking them!**

 **TG: fine, fine**

 **TG: i'm on it**

 **\- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -**

He was talking to Dirk, then. And Jake. Better make this quick. If Karkat was really missing, he wanted to go searching for him immediately. He was worried. Even if he couldn't let Karkat know it, he was worried.

 **\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering golgothasTerror [GT] -**

 **TG: hey have you seen karkat around**

 **GT: Hello to you too, my good sir!**

 **GT: How pleasant to hear from you after all this time! We hardly ever see each other, you know. I think Dirk would appreciate spending some time with you too, though hes too proud to admit it.**

 **TG: yeah yeah that's great**

 **TG: have you seen karkat?**

 **GT: Straight to the point, i see!**

 **GT: As it so happens, i did indeed see him today!**

 **TG: really? where?**

 **TG: what was he doing?**

 **GT: Oh, he was just walking through town! i tried to say hello to him, but he said a few rather nasty things and then...**

 **GT: Well...**

 **TG: dirk?**

 **GT: Dirk.**

 **TG: i swear to god i'm going to kill him**

 **GT: Come now, its not his fault!**

 **GT: Or maybe it is...**

 **GT: Ive never been very clear on that.**

 **TG: yeah i can tell**

 **TG: hey do you remember what direction karkat was walking in?**

 **GT: Towards your place, i believe.**

 **GT: Didnt you see him?**

 **TG: my place?**

 **TG: no i didn't see him, that's why i'm asking**

 **TG: it looks like he just dumped out his sylladex and vanished into the forest**

 **TG: thought i'd ask around first before i go running after him like a fucking idiot**

 **TG: all romcom style, you know?**

 **TG: sun shining in the background, wind flowing through my golden locks**

 **TG: all that good shit**

 **GT: Ah, yes! Well, i wouldnt know much about romcoms.**

 **GT: Should i start watching them?**

 **TG: they're terrible, don't bother**

 **TG: anyways, i should go**

 **TG: more people to interrogate and all**

 **GT: Yes, of course!**

 **GT: Good luck in your endeavors!**

 **\- golgothasTerror [GT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -**

Nothing there, other than the fact that Karkat had been walking towards his house. _His_ house, which was strange because he hadn't seen him. Or maybe…John's house? Had he been going to John's house? Had he reached it? Had he seen something that had made him leave? What could he possibly have seen?

 **\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] -**

 **TG: did you run into karkat today?**

 **TG: you know, other than that time where you presumably tackled the shit out of him in the middle of the street?**

 **TT: Oh yeah, I already forgot about that**

 **TT: The little shit was asking for it, you know he was**

 **TT: You should have seen him, all antagonizing Jake like a hideous fly all over a the rear of a beautiful stallion**

 **TG: dude don't start doing the horse thing**

 **TG: just tell me if you saw karkat after you smashed him into the ground**

 **TG: and where he was, what he was doing, all that garbage**

 **TT: Why do you care?**

 **TT: You guys are over, aren't you?**

 **TG: we are**

 **TG: but right now it looks like something might have happened to him, so i need to know if you saw anything**

 **TG: or maybe noticed anything weird about him when you were busy beating him into the ground?**

 **TT: Weird?**

 **TT: Nah, dude**

 **TT: He was just being his usual mopey self, nothing out of the ordinary there**

 **TT: What do you think happened to him?**

 **TG: no fucking clue**

 **TG: guess i'll know more once john gets back to me**

 **TG: he's asking all the girls**

 **TT: Well**

 **TT: Don't know why you're bothering, but**

 **TT: Good luck I guess.**

 **TG: yeah thanks**

 **\- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] -**

Nothing there, either. Shit, what had happened to the shouty little troll?

His phone pinged.

 **\- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -**

 **EB: the girls haven't seen him!**

 **EB: any word from the guys?**

 **TG: dirk saw him, but nothing was out of the ordinary**

 **TG: jake's as oblivious as always**

 **EB: haha, yeah, i could have told you that**

 **EB: that guy is a riot!**

 **TG: ...**

 **EB: right! sorry, not the time.**

 **EB: so there's really no sign of him?**

 **TG: nope**

 **TG: completely fucking gone**

 **TG: poof, right into thin air**

 **TG: like some kind of rabbit coming out of the magician's hat**

 **EB: don't you mean going into the hat?**

 **TG: whatever**

 **TG: that's not important**

 **EB: woah, dude**

 **EB: metaphors aren't important? isn't that like, your thing?**

 **EB: you must be real shaken up**

 **TG: come on, you know me better than that**

 **TG: what are we gonna do?**

 **TG: we can't just leave him out there, wherever he is**

 **TG: we should probably do something**

 **EB: i'm sure karkat is fine**

 **EB: we should probably just give it a while, you know? wait for him to come back.**

 **EB: you know he does this sometimes.**

 **TG: no, i do not know that**

 **TG: i'm going looking for him**

 **EB: wow, you're really concerned for someone who's not romantically interested in him, dave!**

 **EB: a little suspicious, don't you think?**

 **EB: ;)**

 **TG: fuck off egbert, don't ;) me**

 **EB: no need to get snippy!**

 **EB: just keep me posted, okay?**

 **EB: i'm worried too.**

 **\- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -**

Something was really wrong, he could feel it. Or maybe he was just paranoid—but either way, he knew he had to find the missing troll. Karkat was a destructive person, mostly to himself, and he was afraid that his destructiveness would show itself in the worst way possible if he just wandered away into the wilderness like he'd threatened to do so many times.

 _Damn it,_ he thought, feet lifting off the ground as he propelled himself out of Karkat's home and right to the foot of the forest in one large burst of energy. He paused, eyes scanning the ground for any sign of footprints, or discarded items, or _anything_ that would tell him where the shouty little troublemaker had run off to. Seeing nothing, he sent Karkat a short (and bitingly vicious) message via pesterchum, hoping against hope that he would respond to him where he'd ignored John. But nothing came of it but a blank screen, and of _course_ that was the case. Karkat had obviously left everything behind, wherever he'd gone.

Dave took a few steps into the forest in a random direction. He was forced to return to the ground in order to look around, seeing as the trees were too thick to fly above the forest and look at the same time and the trunks were way too close together for him to fly through them at the speed he wanted, and so he half-drifted, half-walked through the forest Karkat had _oh so conveniently_ decided to build his home _right fucking next to._

 _Inconsiderate asshole._

…He really hoped he was okay.

†††

Karkat stood in the middle of the forest, face angled towards the sky. The twin suns of their new planet were hanging low in the sky, threatening to slip below the horizon more and more with every moment. He should go back, he knew—the forest could be dangerous at night, with the strange lusus-like creatures romping about every which way. _And_ he'd left his sickles on the floor of his hive, so defending himself would be a bit of a challenge if a particularly violent creature caught him off guard.

But still…this was nice.

He wasn't sure why he'd stopped. He'd spent what felt like hours crashing the forest with reckless abandon, not really sure where he was going but trusting the tugging feeling in his gut to lead him where he needed to go. As it so happened, that tugging sensation had led him right where he was now—the center of a small gap in the trees, not quite large enough to be called a clearing. Something had stopped him here. Something…a feeling, a flicker of intuition…something was holding him still.

The twin suns continued to sink. It was growing cold now, and Karkat _knew_ he had to leave. Being here was dangerous. And while he was trying his hardest not to sleep, he knew that he could only take so much. If he fell asleep here, had some kind of lapse in judgment and accidentally drifted off, it was entirely likely that the local wildlife would tear him to shreds.

He needed to leave.

He needed to leave _now._

His feet stayed firmly in place as the suns dipped even closer to the horizon. As if he were caught in a trance. _It can't be because of sleep deprivation,_ he thought. _I just slept last night, albeit for only a short amount of time, even if I_ feel _like I haven't slept for a month. Maybe I'm hungry? I haven't eaten today, or drank much, but that doesn't seem severe enough to cause whatever the fuck this is._

Something rustled in the bushes to his right.

He turned slowly, reflexes feeling duller than they should have been. A haze had settled over his vision, and he staggered in an attempt to regain the balance that left him in a rush. _What…what's happening to me?_ One hand shot up to clasp to his forehead, feeling for a fever. But he found nothing, and his limbs felt heavy and sluggish. _I must be sick. That's it…I need to go back to my hive and eat something and rest. Not sleep, but…rest. Close my eyes for a bit._

His feet finally came free from the ground and he took one, halting step forward before his pan started spinning. A sharp breath was torn from him, and he had to lean against the nearest tree to keep from falling.

Another rustle, this one closer than the last.

 _Fuck…why can't I move?_

Breeze ruffled the back of his hair. The rustling was suddenly far too close for comfort, and his stomach twisted as he realized that he could be in trouble if he couldn't fight back. If one of the strange lusus creatures snuck up on him now…

The leaves right in front of his face shuddered, and Karkat shot backwards with a harsh cry. Unfortunately his legs were still behaving like jelly, and he fell flat on his ass as he stared up at the leaves in alarm.

Something glinted in the darkness.

"H-hey…" His voice shook, and he forced it back under control before he continued speaking. "Easy, there…I'm n-not going to hurt you…"

That was a joke. If anything, _this_ thing would be hurting _him._

The leaves rustled again, and Karkat's blood pusher dropped in his chest as he realized that _something_ was staring at him. Two glittering eyes, piercing right through him with…

 _Familiarity?_

"Who…?"

But the eyes were gone. The _thing_ was gone. And the instant it was, strength flowed back into his body in an overwhelming surge. The haze lifted, his think pan sharpened, his limbs were responding to his commands again—and when he pushed himself to his feet, he was shaking purely out of fear.

He didn't know what that thing had been, but it had been _intelligent._ And he wasn't sure why, but…he felt that if it had wanted to, it could have torn him limb from limb without a second thought.

 _Why hadn't it?_

Something howled in the distance, and Karkat nearly jumped out of his skin. Right…it wasn't safe to be out here. And now that he'd regained his fine motor skills, he should probably get the fuck out of there _right now._

But still…as he started tearing through the forest, making as much noise as physically possible in his hurry to leave, he couldn't help the spike of dread that settled low in his stomach, a jolt that pierced him straight through the middle without mercy. Because those eyes, the eyes that had cut straight to his core, had been familiar for a reason.

They'd been a shade of _purple._ Indigo, to be exact.

And no animal had eyes like that.


	3. John: Strike a Deal

**I uploaded a quick pale JohnKat fic on AO3 if you care to seek it out. I think I mentioned this, but my name over there is xDemon_Talex. In the meantime, though, I hope you enjoy this chapter! It sure is a lot easier posting this over here, where I don't have to deal with formatting pesterlogs. Granted, it looks worse, but still.**

 **Happy reading!**

 **Chapter 3: John: Strike a Deal**

* * *

When Dave finally found Karkat, it wasn't because he saw him. Rather, it was because he _heard_ him. The guy was practically rampaging through the forest, cracking branches, tearing down vines, crunching dried leaves beneath his feet. He was running at what seemed like top speed back towards his house, and the sound of his haste sent a prickle of alarm straight down Dave's spine.

He resisted leaping out to see him, settling on flitting through the trees above to make sure nothing happened as he headed home. The troll was obviously shaken quite badly, if his rather clumsy romp through the glen had anything to say about the situation. Dave couldn't get close enough to see his eyes clearly without alerting him, but what he _could_ see appeared wide and panicky, almost glazed with fear. He was running from something. Was he running from something?

A branch snapped, and Dave bristled with alarm when he saw Karkat take a nasty tumble, landing hard on his shoulder. He very nearly darted down to help him, then, but reminded himself that it would probably just hurt worse if he tried to talk to him again.

Karkat hissed out a pained breath as he pulled himself to his feet, letting out a string of strangled cuss words as he grasped at his ankle. He must have twisted it when he tripped.

 _So what, am I just going to ignore him for the rest of my life?_

The troll was struggling to his feet now, leaning harshly on the nearest tree as he placed his foot gingerly upon the ground. He cursed again.

 _He's hurt himself._ Dave's fingers twitched as he had to stop himself from reaching out to someone that wasn't _his_ anymore. Hell, Karkat had _never_ really been his—they'd never defined their relationship, after all. They'd just kinda cuddled on the couch watching movies and followed each other around all day like a pair of lost puppies, falling over each other excitedly. They hadn't even kissed.

Karkat finally managed to get his balance back. But as he continued picking his way through the forest, he had a visible limp. Not a bad one—it was obvious he hadn't hurt himself too severely—but it was still there, like an obnoxious gnat flitting about a computer screen.

He was fine. He didn't need help. Dave lowered his arms back to his sides, drifting after the troll listlessly. It was a miracle he hadn't been seen, but Karkat seemed distracted to say the least. He wondered what had messed him up so badly. He'd have to make John pester him about it later, just to make sure nothing terrible had happened.

Or he could ask him himself, but…

Karkat stumbled again. He didn't fall, but his eyes were still wide and scared, and his entire body shook with light, terrified tremors.

He wasn't fine. He needed help. He reached for his pocket, preparing to pull out his phone and order John to pester Karkat _now._ But then he stopped, realizing that he knew exactly what his response would be.

 _Dave, you're right there! Just talk to him!_

And maybe he wouldn't have much of a choice but to talk to him in person, because _Karkat didn't have his computer on him so pestering him wouldn't do any good._

He'd forgotten about that.

Karkat was almost home now. If he reached his hive and shut himself away again, that would be that—Dave was sure he wouldn't have the courage to go knocking on his door. He had to do this now, if he was going to do it at all.

He inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. He was _Dave Strider._ He was the coolest of the cool. And he could _do_ this. Talk to Karkat. Don't get overly emotional. Don't get sucked into an argument. Don't reveal the _big truth_ of why you ran away.

Simple.

Dave dropped out of the sky like a stone, plopping himself down right in front of Karkat. "Hey, Karkles, it's been a while—hey!" He gasped, ducking under the fist the troll swung his way. "Watch it, dude!"

Karkat jerked away as if he'd been burned. His teeth were bared, eyes hard as steel, a low growl starting in the back of his throat. His hands even came up, claws bared as if in preparation to shred whoever was in front of him. But then he paused, took in the appearance of the person standing before him—and though his posture deflated for a second, his irritability was back in the blink of an eye, filling every line of his scrappy form. "Oh," he sneered, "it's _you_. What the fuck do you want, you bulgegargling shitbiscuit?"

The cussing didn't faze him. He'd practically lived with Karkat in his room on the meteor; he'd gotten used to being called a litany of foul names. "Lookin' a bit pale there, dude," he said coolly, choosing to ignore the question. "Saw you trip and hurt your ankle back there, too. You doing okay?"

The troll's answering defensiveness was almost palpable. "I'm fucking fine, got it? So fuck off and leave me alone like you've been doing all these months already!"

He had to act quickly to hide a wince. Karkat was really that upset with him, huh? Shunning him, cold and unfeeling. But then again, he deserved it. _He_ was the one that had fled the scene without so much as goodbye. "Hey, cool down! I was just making sure you were okay, but it's cool if you want to walk the rest of the way back to your house on that ankle of yours."

"It doesn't even hurt!" was the fiery response. "Now get the fuck out of my way! I'm not interested in hashing out our shitty relationship problems right now!"

Dave didn't move a muscle, choosing instead to lean his shoulder into the tree to his right, blocking Karkat's path. "Not happening, Karkles. Not until you tell me why you came tearing through the forest looking like Lord English himself was hot on your heels."

Karkat shuddered, and Dave considered too late that maybe that comment had stricken a little too close to home. Karkat was the only one of the remaining people that had seen Lord English up close, after all, even if it was just in a dream bubble.

He had to fix this. "Hey," Dave started, brushing a hand through his hair awkwardly. "I didn't mean—"

"No, no, feel free to put me down all you like!" Karkat snapped. "Make a fucking joke out of it for all I care—see who can push the emotionally damaged troll the closest to the edge without sending him right off the fucking deep end!"

This…wasn't going according to plan.

Karkat moved forward, pushing Dave aside with only a little difficulty. "Just get out of here and leave me alone! Isn't that what you've been determined to do all this time? Ignore me completely, never offering an explanation?"

Dave's heart skipped a beat. Now _this—_ this was what he'd been expecting. And this, coincidentally, was also the thing he'd been hoping to avoid. Having deep, emotional conversations wasn't something he was very good at.

"No response?" the troll snapped. "Good! Get the fuck out of my way!"

Technically, the troll was already past him—but Dave said nothing as Karkat limped away, now trying very obviously to hide said limp. He wanted badly to follow, to keep talking, to explain everything and make things right, but his utter lack of ability to express himself combined with the knowledge that he _knew_ he would just make everything worse kept him rooted firmly in place, watching as that pair of candy-corn horns began to slip away into the trees. His house was close now. He would be okay. Physically, he would be okay.

Mentally…he wasn't so sure.

Guilt stricken, he was calling out before he could stop himself. "Karkat!"

Mercifully, the troll stopped before he disappeared entirely. "What?"

He swallowed hard. Forced himself to speak. "Are you okay? Like…emotionally, I guess?"

Karkat stared at him for a moment, boring straight through him with eyes that had just recently started to show their scarlet coloring. Then he sneered, lip curling distastefully. "You're not my fucking moirail, Strider, so don't fucking act like it!"

He recoiled, raising both hands in front of him defensively. "Geez, dude, don't bite my head off! Go to your moirail, then!"

Karkat mumbled something unintelligible.

"What?"

Again, his words slurred together.

"Speak up!"

"I said I _don't have a fucking moirail,_ okay?"

"Don't have…?" Dave wracked his brains. Oh, _right—_ he was an idiot. Gamzee had been Karkat's moirail, right? But then the clown dude had run off, and Karkat had never found a new one. "Um…maybe you should…?"

"Fuck. You."

Dave's heart clenched, this time in anger. "Fine! Go mope in your room for all I care!"

"I'll do that, then!"

"Good!"

"Fine!"

The two eyed each other, silent.

Then, with no further words spoken between them, Karkat turned and shuffled off into the trees. For just one moment Dave considered following. But then he shook his head, remembering just how close Karkat's home was, and he knew that it was time to go back to his own place. He would talk to John about this mess, and maybe he could convince him to talk to Karkat. Maybe _he_ could get through to the idiot.

On cue, his phone dinged. John, no doubt. He ignored it, though, knowing he'd be back home soon to tell him exactly what happened.

He had a bad feeling about all this, that was for sure.

†††

"He just brushed you off?" John repeated, staring at Dave in surprise. "Didn't want to talk at all?"

The blond shrugged, unaffected. On the surface, at least. "Yep. Didn't want a single thing to do with me."

"That…surprises me."

"Why? I dumped him on his ass and moved out here without so much as a day's warning. He has the right to hate me, dude." _It's what I wanted. I wanted him to hate me, so I could never hurt him by getting closer than I already was._

"Well, Dave…I don't know if you've noticed, but Karkat really likes you."

"Like hell he does."

"He does! I know you don't believe me, but you're just not looking hard enough!"

A snort. "And I suppose _you're_ looking hard enough at Karkat to tell what he's thinking?"

John blushed. "No, no, it's not like that! It's just…can't you tell? He just seems so tense!"

Dave looked at his shoes. He didn't trust himself to remain emotionless, and he didn't want to give John any more ammo than he already had. "He's on edge. Something's wrong. I picked up on that."

"Well, good! I'd be worried if you couldn't notice that much about someone that means so much to you."

He tensed. This was growing dangerously close to the unknown realm of _emotion,_ and he didn't want to get caught up in that nonsense.

John seemed to sense it. He sighed, "Look, Dave, maybe you should go see Rose."

"Rose?" he echoed. Then he caught on, spluttering, "Aw, hell no, dude, she'll psychoanalyze the shit out of me!"

"You know she's doing that already. She probably already has three journals filled up with ramblings about this whole mess!"

He was probably right, but that didn't make the thought any more appealing. "No. Fucking. Way."

"Yes way, Dave! Go see her!"

He stared at John hard. Then an idea flickered through his mind, and he smirked. "Fine. One condition."

"A condition?" John blinked, eyes wide behind his rectangular glasses.

"Yeah, dude. Time to pay up."

"And what do you want, exactly?"

"Simple. I talk to Rose, you talk to Karkat."

John blanched. "Oh…he didn't seem to want to talk to me much. Can't I just do the dishes or something?"

"Nope. No John talking to Karkat, no Dave talking to Rose. End of story, no exceptions." He peered at John over the tops of his shades for added effect. "What do you say, my poor, awkward palhoncho?"

The blush was back, albeit slightly less visible than before, and he stuttered, "I-I, uh…" He swallowed. "I guess it's a deal?"

"Good." Dave stuck out his hand, drawing John into a firm handshake to seal the deal. "Now get going."

"What?" John squawked. "Now? Right after he pointedly ignored me and then went missing for hours on end?" He wrung his hands, crying out, "I can't do that! Dave, don't make me do it!"

"Calm down, dude. I was just joking."

John stared for a moment, expression unchanging. But then he relaxed somewhat nervously, laughing out, "O-oh, yes, of course…haha! And I thought _I_ was supposed to be the prankster! Hehe…"

"Just go see him tomorrow," Dave said, the last traces of a smile clinging to his lips. "I'll tell him you're coming, and warn him that he'll have _me_ to deal with if he doesn't answer the door."

John nodded so quickly that Dave thought his head might pop right off his shoulders. "Right! Will do!"

With that taken care of, Dave could practically feel the tension starting to drain from the room. "So…movie?"

"Con Air!"

He groaned, feigning protest. "Come on, _that_ old rag again? John, I thought I'd finally gotten you to start appreciating _true_ cinematic masterpieces, not those garbage action flics!"

"No way, Con Air is the best!"

Dave opened his mouth to poke fun, but John was already scrambling for the living room to find the movie. Shrugging, he followed his best friend into the next room over for what would undoubtedly be the worst and most unironic experience of his life. _Again._

†††

\- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

EB: hey karkat!

EB: dave said he was going to message you about this, but i figured he'd forget

EB: so here i am!

EB: warning you that i'm going to come talk to you today i guess?

EB: dave kinda insisted upon it after whatever happened between the two of you lastnight

EB: he thought you could use someone to talk to maybe?

EB: well here i am!

EB: ...

EB: geez this is awkward

EB: well just be ready for me at noon if that's okay with you

EB: see you then!

\- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

A few hours later, John stood awkwardly out of Karkat's house, knuckles rapping against the door rhythmically. He'd warned Karkat about his visit, but the troll had never bothered to respond. And he hadn't heard anything from Dave, so maybe he just wasn't home or something? Maybe he should leave, or…

No! He couldn't leave. He'd shaken hands with Dave over this, and the bro code said that you could _never_ break a deal once you shook on it. Dave was already over at Rose's lab, and so he _had_ to do this.

He knocked again, and this time he was rewarded with a few muffled curse words spouting from inside the house.

"Fuck off, whoever you are!"

It was a start. "Karkat?" he called in worriedly. "Kar, it's me, John!"

A pause. Then, "What do you want?"

It was still muffled. He was probably in the living room or the kitchen or something. "Can you open the door?" he called. "I had some spare time today, and we haven't spoken in person for a while, so I thought maybe I'd come over and say hi!"

"Well, hello. Now leave!"

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. Karkat's fiery personality never got old. "Fat chance, Karkat! Open the door!"

"No!"

"Yes."

"No!"

"Yes."

"No!"

"Y—"

Karkat cut him off with a loud groan, calling, "Let's _not_ do the Equius thing, okay?"

John wasn't really sure what the Equius thing was, but still he answered, "Then open the door!"

There was a long pause, and for a moment John thought that Karkat was just going back to ignoring him. But then there was the sound of someone shuffling their way across the floor, then the locks were clicking and Karkat's angry face was appearing in the crack between the door and the frame.

"There we go!" John exclaimed with another bright smile. "Now let me in, and we'll be onto phase two!"

Karkat tried to glare, but it was clear his heart wasn't in it. "Did Dave send you here?"

"No," he lied. "I'm here of my own accord, just to see how you're doing! You _did_ ignore me yesterday, you know, and I was concerned."

The troll hesitated, expression twisting into one of guilt. "Oh, yeah…fuck, I forgot about that already. Sorry."

"Let me in and I'll forgive you."

Another halfhearted glare. Then Karkat deflated, stepping back from the door, and vanished into the house. He said nothing, but John took it as his cue to come in. He pushed on the door and let himself in, locking it behind him. Then he looked up, taking in what had become of Karkat's home, and…it was a bit of a mess, admittedly. Several of the things from his sylladex were spread out across the floor just inside the doorway, just as Dave had described, and the rest of the house looked a bit…chaotic. It appeared as if Karkat had just been throwing things here and there as he used them, never bothering to return them to their proper places. It would have driven Rose nuts.

Walking out of the entrance hall, John found himself standing at the divide between the kitchen and the living room. The kitchen was even more of a mess, utensils and dishes piled high in the sink. He took a brief peek inside as he went by, and was a bit troubled to see that there was no sign Karkat had used the kitchen recently. All the dishes in the sink looked like they'd been there forever. He'd been eating, hadn't he? Was he looking thinner than usual?

John walked into the living room, seeking out his friend so he could see for himself. He froze the instant he walked into the room and spotted a monstrous heap of _something_ in front of the TV in place of the couch, which had been pushed to the side of the room rather sloppily. Karkat was nowhere to be seen. But as he moved forward, eyeing the heap tentatively, he realized that Karkat was _on top_ of that thing, which he now realized was a massive pile of clothing, blankets, and towels.

"Um…Karkat, what's with the…?" he trailed off, waving a hand helplessly at the mound of soft materials.

"It's a pile," Karkat said flatly.

"I…see. And why is it there?" Maybe Karkat was a little more out of it than he'd thought if he was throwing everything in his house into one big heap.

He looked away. "It's a troll thing. I couldn't sleep last night so I threw this together and laid on _it_ instead. Helps a little."

John hummed, moving closer and poking at the pile with the toe of his shoe.

Karkat hissed. "Watch it!"

He recoiled immediately, not wanting to make things any worse than they already were. "Woah, sorry! Didn't realize it was a big deal."

"It's a troll thing," he repeated with a pout that was nothing short of adorable—not that John could ever say such a thing if he wanted to keep all of his fingers.

"Yeah…" John looked around for a moment, then dragged the couch closer so he could sit on it and still be within comfortable speaking distance. He plopped down on it contentedly, curling his nose as puff of dust that rose from it, flying up into the stale air. "Can I ask you a question?"

"If you must."

"Are you…okay?"

Karkat threw his arms up dramatically, exclaiming, "That's all anyone's been asking me lately! I'm completely fine!"

He was not fine. John could see it. He hadn't spent as much time around Karkat as he should have, he _knew_ that, but he _also_ knew enough to recognize the way his shoulders were being held just slightly higher than usual, the way his eyes glimmered with perfectly concealed ghosts. He didn't know how Dave _couldn't_ see how serious it was, how he could just sit around and say that maybe the situation was a little messed up, but nothing too far out of the ordinary. Karkat was so obviously not okay; he was miserable alone out here; why wasn't anyone _doing_ anything?

Karkat fidgeted uncomfortably as the silence stretched between them. He said nothing, though, just curled up into a ball as he sank deeper into the pile of blankets.

It was then that John took the opportunity to really look at Karkat for the first time since Dave had left him. His stomach flipped strangely as he realized that the troll had dark bags under his eyes, and he really _was_ thinner than usual.

"Have you been eating?" he blurted out. "Sleeping?"

"Sleeping?" Karkat echoed, smoothly glazing over the first question. "How the fuck do you expect me to sleep when I'm forced into a nightmare every time I close my eyes for more than five minutes?"

John winced. "I…guess I didn't realize it was that bad."

"It's not that bad. Just bad enough."

"Is…there anything I can do?" he tried.

The troll shot him an odd look, and John couldn't help but feel that he'd asked the wrong question. "Yeah, get Rose and Kanaya to alchemize a gogdamn recuperacoon. Some sopor slime to fill it would be good, too."

Another wince. "They still haven't figured that out, have they?" It wasn't really a question. He'd tracked their progress just out of curiosity, and he knew that they were struggling with the captchalogue codes for a lot of basic things.

"Not even close," Karkat confirmed, and the bags under his eyes just seemed to grow darker.

"So Kanaya is probably in the same way, right?"

"What way?" the troll shot back defensively.

He'd have to choose his words carefully if he didn't want to be thrown out in the next few moments. "You look a little…tired? Without recuperacoons, Kanaya should be feeling the same way, right?"

Karkat narrowed his eyes. Admitted,"I _feel_ tired. And no, Kanaya seems to be doing _just fine_."

"But…how is that possible? She's a troll, so why isn't she having the nightmares?"

Karkat shrugged in an attempt to look casual, but John could see the way his body radiated exhaustion, both physical and mental. "I don't know. The fact that she's a rainbow drinker probably has something to do with it; she's not _really_ a troll anymore. That, and the fact that she has someone to vent all her troubles to. That _would_ keep the worse of the nightmares away."

"You mean a moirail? She has a moirail?"

"No, you idiot, she has _Rose."_

"But…" John trailed off, struggling to wrap his brain around the situation. He'd never been too good with trolls and their quadrants, and even now it confused him right out the door. "…I thought that you were only supposed to talk about your problems with your moirail."

Karkat rolled his eyes so hard that it looked almost painful. " _No_ , you blithering imbecile, that's not right at all! I've told you a thousand times—you're supposed to share your emotional trauma with your moirail, but that doesn't mean you can't say _anything_ about it to your matesprit! And anyways, I'd be willing to bet that Rose and Kanaya aren't exactly sticking to the normal bounds of matespritship. They probably share much more than they should, given that Rose has only ever known one quadrant and Kanaya doesn't have the heart to go against her."

"Right," John murmured, head already starting to hurt. "Um…so you think that Kanaya isn't being affected the same way you are because Rose is kinda like her moirail and her matesprit at the same time…?"

"Well would you look at that—you actually have a _brain_ under all that mush!"

"Hey!" John whined. "Karkat, don't be mean!"

He looked away. "Right, right…I forget how fragile you hornless monkeys are."

He almost made a comment about that little insult, but decided that it wasn't a battle he was ready to fight. Instead, he settled on a much safer question (which wasn't safe at all, mind you). "So…if you had someone you could vent to, do you think you'd feel better?"

Karkat watched him cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm kinda here to talk to you, if you hadn't noticed, and maybe you'd start getting better if you got some of it off your chest." He fidgeted nervously as Karkat's piercing glare settled directly on him. At any moment Karkat could just throw his hands up and kick him out.

So when Karkat's response was a quiet, "Okay," he couldn't stop his eyes from widening in surprise. Karkat was going to _trust_ him? _Confide_ in him? It was like a dream coming true right in front of him. A _good_ dream, not one of Karkat's weird nightmares.

Karkat must have noticed his surprise, because the next moment he was hissing, "If you don't really want to talk, then fucking _leave."_

"No, no!" he said hurriedly, trying to perform damage control. "Tell me whatever you feel comfortable sharing! I'm not your moirail, but…I think I can help?"

The troll stared silently for far too long. Then he shook his head with an exasperated sigh, muttering, "Fine…I need to ask you a question."

"Shoot."

"Have you… _seen_ anything in the forest?" He looked uncomfortable. "Anything strange?"

John thought back to all the exploring he'd done, flying everywherewithin at least a hundred mile radius of the town in the past several months. He tried to recall something, _anything_ out of the ordinary—but he came up blank, remembering only the herds of lusus creatures romping about in the wilderness. "No, nothing. Why? Did you see something?" _Is that why you're so shaken up?_

He started fidgeting again. Had he ever really stopped? "I may have run across something… _off._ "

He sounded so serious. "What did you see?" John pressed.

A shudder enveloped Karkat's entire form, and John's limbs twitched slightly in his desire to move closer and put a halt to it. "I…I went into the forest yesterday. Spent some time on my own. And then, around the time when the suns set, _something_ happened to me." He held his hands up in front of his face, and they were trembling slightly. "Something _drained_ me. I couldn't see right, couldn't move, could barely breathe. The air was thick. The leaves were rustling all around me. And then there was a set of eyesin the shadows right by me."

"Eyes? Like one of the lusus creatures?"

"No. They were…" he trailed off.

"They were what?"

He swallowed. "Purple. They were purple. So purple they were almost black."

John tried to remember ever having seen a creature like that, and came up with nothing. "It could be a new species?" he offered.

"No. It wasn't a creature. It looked at me with _familiarity,_ Egbert. Like it _knew who I was."_

He looked haunted, John realized. Arms clasped around himself, glazed eyes staring off into a corner. He pressed, "And did _you_ know who _it_ was?"

"No, of course not!" Karkat snapped, but the response was too quick and too heated.

"Karkat," he chastised.

"I don't know that shade of purple!" the troll insisted in a hiss.

"Kar…"

"Don't call me that! You're not Eridan!"

John stared helplessly. So often lately Karkat had been referencing his departed friends. It was troubling, like he was caught in the past and unable to escape. Maybe _that_ was the true source of his nightmares.

"I swear, you'll be calling me KK next, and I _can't take being called that ever again!_ That or Kitkat, or Karkitty, or Karkles, or Karbro, or whatever the fuck nickname you want to make up for me!"

Okay, this was _definitely_ not about a dumb nickname.

"Just stick to calling me by my name, got it? I'm not going to start seeing fucking _ghosts_ everywhere just because you won't shut your big mouth!"

John waited a moment to make sure the troll was done talking. Then, when Karkat did nothing but sit there and glare at him, he decided it was safe to continue. "Karkat…"

The troll snapped his head to one side in defiance.

"Karkat," he repeated, voice soft. "Ghosts?"

His expression remained as still as stone. "Forget I said anything; past me is an idiot. How about you just get the fuck out and we call this whole mess a draw?"

 _"Karkat."_

That made him pause. "Look, I really don't want to talk about it."

John eyed the pile. He wasn't sure why, but he was _really_ tempted to crawl over there with him. Maybe it would provide emotional support?

Before he could act, Karkat was speaking again. "There's nothing to say about this John—I saw something weird in the forest, and on top of all the horrible nightmares, it made me lose my cool."

"Your cool?" John snickered. "Channeling Dave, are you?"

"Shut the fuck up!"

"Okay, okay! If you don't want to talk more about me to this, why don't you go talk to Dave? He was your matewhatever, so he—"

"Dave was _not_ my matesprit!" Karkat bristled. "He was barely even my friend!"

Still in denial, then. "And I suppose it's a coincidence that your nightmares got worse after Dave left?"

"A complete coincidence."

Denial. Completely ridiculous. "Well you need to talk to _someone_ , and if you can't talk to me, then who should I bring here?"

"No one!" Karkat snapped. "I'm—"

"If you say _I'm fine_ one more time, I'm going to…" He paused to think. "…I'm going to hold you down and tickle you until you give in!"

"Touch me and I'll bite your fucking fingers off!"

Okay, so maybe not that. "I'll come over here every day and knock on your door, then, until you decide to tell me what's wrong!"

At that, Karkat hesitated. He almost looked thoughtful. "You'd do that for me?"

"Well, yeah! We're friends!"

His expression twisted slightly. "Of course we are. Best pals, friends to the end, buddies for life."

"Right!" John confirmed with a bright smile. "So whenever you need to talk to someone, until you find yourself a moirail, you should message me and invite me over."

Another strange look. "Is that the only thing that will make you leave?" But it was clear his heart wasn't in the complaint. As he sat there in the pile of blankets, shoulders hunched, head bowed, curled in on himself, John recognized exactly what Karkat was feeling because _he'd_ felt it far too often himself.

Loneliness.

Karkat was lonely.

A spark of anger started in his chest as he thought of Dave, who couldn't be bothered to visit the person he was _so clearly_ interested in romantically. Maybe he'd have another talk with him later, try to knock some sense into that big head of his. Dave was his best friend, but if his stupidity was hurting Karkat then he wouldn't hesitate to pester him until he got his head on straight.

"That's it," John declared, shooting to his feet. "You wait here, I'll be right back."

Karkat watched with weary cautiousness as John moved, straightening his rumpled shirt. "Where are you going?"

"I've gotta grab something from my place. Be back soon, okay?"

"Wait, what are you grabbing? John? John!"

But he was already flying away, a laugh trailing in his wake.

†††

As it turned out, what John had in mind was a movie marathon. _Typical_.

Karkat sat tensely on the couch, which John had only just gotten him to abandon his pile in favor of. Sitting in the pile made him comfortable—it did that for every troll, regardless of whether or not you had a moirail or a matesprit to share it with—but John was sitting _right there_ on the couch, and that pout was impossible to refuse.

Currently, John's eyes were locked on the screen as one of the characters in a shitty romcom tackled her unfortunate love interest to the ground, rain falling dramatically around them. He was so transfixed that he didn't even notice Karkat's blatant staring.

 _Why are you here?_ he wanted to ask. _Why are you still here when you could easily have left hours ago?_ He saw no reason John would really want to hang out with him. Sure, they'd been friends during the game for a while—but after the three-year wait on the meteor and the ship respectively, they'd never really rekindled whatever it was they'd had. Their strange caliginous-crush-turned-friendish thing had just kind of…died off. John had no obligation to be here. He had no obligation to act like they were still friends.

But…so long as he was here…

Karkat bit back a half-amused snort as John reached blindly for the bowl of popcorn between them, missing the bowl several times in his absolute determination to never look away from the screen. He shoveled a handful of popped kernels into his mouth, eyes beginning to drip as if in an attempt to mimic the fake rain falling on screen. He was _such_ an idiot.

" _L-look_ at them, Kar!" John exclaimed, clearly having forgotten the whole _don't call me by that fucking nickname_ talk he'd gotten only a few hours prior. "They're so perfect and in love and beautiful and—!"

There was more, but Karkat wasn't paying attention anymore. His eyes had been drooping for the past two movies, and this incredibly boring human romcom certainly wasn't helping things. He hadn't even gone _that_ long without sleep—it had been what, forty-eight hours now? Maybe a bit more? He'd certainly gone far longer than this before without being _nearly_ this exhausted.

 _Can't fall asleep,_ he reminded himself for the umpteenth time. _Have to hold out for as long as possible before I do, that way I can minimize the time I spend watching my friends be torn apart right in front of me._

John wailed something else about the movie. Then he looked over, and his movie-induced stupor broke slightly when he presumably saw just how exhausted the troll looked. "Karkat?"

He mumbled something unintelligible in response. _So_ _tired…_

John pushed his glasses back up his nose. They'd fallen down slightly sometime around the second movie. "Hey…if you're tired, you should sleep. And _eat_ when you wake up."

"Don't need sleep," he tried to say, but it came out more like "d'ntneedslp…"

John laughed, focus no longer on the movie. "Sure you don't, Karkat. Come on, you should get to bed."

"Fuck you, no," he tried to protest, but his tongue wasn't working. He didn't want to sleep, but his entire body felt like lead. Was his head spinning again? Was…

Was that _thing_ from the forest back? Was that why he was feeling so strange?

"Come on, up!" John prompted, looping his arm around Karkat's shoulders and slowly helping him to his feet. Then he yelped, steadying the troll as he nearly pitched over. "Easy there, Karkat!"

Karkat felt himself moving forward, and realized tiredly that John was moving him towards the stairs. He'd never told John where his respiteblock was, and the human had never been around to find it himself—and so he could only assume that John was flying blind, trusting that Karkat's hive wasn't so large that he couldn't find it if he looked hard enough.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before Karkat found himself being ushered into his respiteblock, where the sleep slat he called his own stood at the middle of the far wall. It was large and soft, and as luxurious as possible, but he knew it would just bring out the nightmares. He didn't want to sleep there. He didn't want to go to sleep. He didn't want to have the nightmares again.

"Hope you don't mind sleeping in your clothes," John joked, "because I'm not going to be the one that strips you down!"

He barely heard him. His think pan was feeling fuzzy again. _Shit, is something wrong with me?_ He wanted to say something, but still his tongue lay thick across the bottom of his mouth.

His back pressed to his sleep slat, and he realized that John had lowered him down. "You okay?" the human had to ask one more time, those blue eyes glittering down at him with concern. "You're looking a little out of it…are you just tired?"

He managed to hum out a nonspecific response. _So fucking tired._

"Okay…well, I'm just going to get you under the covers, then you can rest." John swung his legs onto the bed and positioned them accordingly, draping the troll's limp form across the mattress. Karkat remained completely motionless as John forced the covers back, making sure that his limbs were all arranged correctly before dragging the blankets over him. Internally, Karkat was screaming. He _couldn't_ fall asleep. He _couldn't._ But John had tucked him into the covers to neatly, and everything was so warm, and there was a pair of sweet blue eyes looking down at him hopefully. "You'll sleep, Karkat, won't you?"

He stared up through bleary eyes. Gave a little nod. _Fuck. I'm so fucked._

John seemed to take it as agreement. He smiled, saying, "Good. You sleep for as long as you can, and you _message me_ the next time you need someone to talk to. And eat when you wake up! And talk to Dave, because both of you are being idiots about this whole situation!"

He drifted. What was John saying?

"Hey, are you even listening to me?"

He wasn't.

There was an amused huff. "Okay, Karkat. You can sleep now, but you _will_ do all that stuff I told you to when you wake up!"

He made another dull sound. Was that a rustle outside his window? Claws scraping delicately across the glass?

"I'll see you later, Kar!"

Something roared in the forest. John didn't seem to hear it.

†††

Dave sat across from Rose and Kanaya at one of the lab tables that they'd cleaned off and passed as a dining table. He kept thinking about all of the weird experiments that had no doubt taken place on top of the table, but the girls didn't seem to mind. They just sat there calmly, tea steaming in front of them, Kanaya holding a roll of yarn as Rose knitted at her side. He wasn't quite sure what she was making, but it was _big._ Maybe it was a cozy for one of the weird machines blinking and flashing in the background.

Rose paused to take a sip of her tea, and Dave shifted self-consciously. He'd agreed to do this so John would talk to Karkat, but that didn't mean he was happy about it. He loved Rose as much as a Strider could bring himself to love another person, but he wasn't in the mood to be psychoanalyzed to death. Rose was already at it, he could tell—she was watching him with those sharp eyes of hers, and he could tell she was writing essays in her head about what was wrong with him _this_ time.

"So," she said at last, and the sound of her voice nearly made him jump. He recovered his coolness immediately, though—he was a _Strider,_ after all.

"So," he echoed.

Kanaya watched silently. Rose raised a brow.

"You're here to speak about your most recent relationship disaster, are you not?"

He winced. Straight to the point, then.

"I'll take your rather awkward pause as a yes, if that's acceptable."

He bit back a groan. Rose still heard it, of course, even though it never actually breached the airwaves between them. She was strange like that.

"I've already started keeping several logs dealing with this situation, and I'd be more than happy to pull them up for your inspection."

 _Of course_ she'd started keeping records. Why wouldn't she?

"It's not just you, of course—I find the dynamic between Jake and Dirk to be quite interesting, and Callie's attempt to acclimate herself to the new world is equally fascinating, so I've begun recording their psychological plights as well."

"Wouldn't be you if you hadn't, Rose."

She smiled. "No, I suppose I wouldn't. Now, would you like to see the journals I've started, or—"

"No, no," Dave said quickly. "Let's just talk, then you can psychoanalyze the shit out of me and send me on my way."

The smile grew just slightly. "Okay, then. Why don't you start by telling me why you're here?"

He opened his mouth to make some excuse about needing something from the lab, or just wanting to check up on his weird ecto-sister, but the piercing way Rose was staring through him made him think twice about it. "John made me," he decided. "Though I could use someone to talk to or some shit, I don't know."

"And what did he offer you in return for coming to me?"

"What?" He tried to play dumb.

Rose didn't even pause her knitting as she said, "You haven't been out to see me in weeks, Dave, most likely because you suspected that I would take the opportunity to antagonize you about your relationship with Karkat, so I severely doubt that you would come here of your own accord. John has most likely offered to do something for you, something you value greatly, otherwise you would not be here."

Damn. He'd forgotten how endearingly annoying this was. "What if I just wanted to see my ecto-sister?"

"Dave."

He held eye contact for just a moment. Then he deflated, banging his forehead harshly into the table and groaning out, "Fine, fine!" Oh man, she was going to have a _field day_ with this one. "John agreed to go talk to Karkat so long as _I_ went to go talk to _you._ "

Rose paused. She actually looked vaguely surprised, as if she hadn't expected to get an answer so quickly. "And what would John be talking to Karkat about?"

"That's not important," Dave said. "You're here to get on my case, not my weird ex- _whatever's_ case."

"Hmm. Interesting."

"What? What's interesting?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll get to that later. For now, why don't you tell me what you've been up to lately?"

She was really getting into character now. He could practically _sense_ her slipping into psychoanalyst mode. "You know me, Rose, I've been up to the same old shit as always. Mixing records, sitting through horrible movies with John, flying around and exploring this dumpster fire we call a planet…the usual."

"You haven't sent me any of your mixes in a while," Rose pointed out. "You used to send them to me almost weekly; even asking me to collaborate with you on some of them. Is there a reason you've stopped?"

It probably had something to do with the fact that he wasn't _really_ spending time at his turntables anymore. "Just haven't been in the mood, you know? You really have to wait until you feel the beat before you start mixing."

Rose didn't believe him. He could see it. "That's never seemed to be an issue for you before."

"Things are different now. It's a new planet, new universe. Hell, we don't even have our fucking _dream bubbles_ anymore."

"Does that concern you? The fact that everything is different in our new universe? That we've lost the use of the dream bubbles?"

"Hell no. Things are so much nicer now, you know? No real concerns or responsibilities other than holding our entire goddamn civilization together at the seams."

Ooh, he shouldn't have said that. Rose was really watching him now, hardly looking at what she was knitting. "But you haven't been doing much holding, wouldn't you say? You've spent most of your time either holing yourself up in your home or flying around with John."

"Yeah." He couldn't deny it.

"So it's safe to say, then, that your troubles are more related to something occurring outside of, as you put it, _holding our entire goddamn civilization together at the seams."_

He shrugged. "I guess that's accurate."

"Well then." She glanced at Kanaya meaningfully, who immediately reached to untangle the knot that had formed in the yarn. "There's not really that much going on for you, so figuring out what's bothering you should be easy. Although I'm fairly certain that I already know what it is."

"Oh? And what's that?"

She stopped knitting. The needles went slack in her hands as she looked up at him, head tilting just slightly to one side. "Karkat."

And there it was. The name fell over him like a heavy blanket, and he cursed internally as he realized that _yes, this was happening_. Rose was going to force him to sit here and hash out all the problems with his failed relationship.

"Again, I'll take your silence to mean agreement. This is good, Dave—now that I've confirmed the source of your recent unease, I should be able to work you through it."

"I'm fine, thanks. No need to keep analyzing."

"Oh no, this is actually quite interesting." The needles were placed down on the table, and Dave swiftly reached out to point the ends away from him. He'd seen what came out of those things, and he didn't want his face blasted off. "Why don't you start from the beginning? Tell me how you became friends with Karkat, and then we can work from there."

"You _know_ how I became friends with Karkat," he grumbled. "We were all stranded together on the meteor, and there sure as hell weren't a whole lot of other people around to talk to."

"So you blame close proximity for your relationship."

"Isn't that how most relationships start off?"

"Actually, an increase in the amount of online dating has—"

"Rose, that was on _earth._ Which is now _gone."_

She paused. "Oh…yes, you're correct. In that case, I suppose you're right about proximity."

She didn't say anything else, and Dave guessed she was waiting for him to continue. Fine, then—he'd give her what she wanted. John probably wouldn't be satisfied until he had a full report, anyways. "We became friends on the meteor. Started hanging out, watching movies, that kind of thing. And then we started hanging out a _lot,_ and we…" He cleared his throat, bringing a hand up subconsciously to make sure his shades were still in place.

"You what?" Rose prompted.

"We…I don't know, bonded? Whatever the hell you call it when two best bros spend so much time together that they start suspecting that they're not just bros. At first I thought I was seeing the little guy like a brother, but…you know…"

"No, I do not know. Please enlighten me."

He glanced at Kanaya, suddenly acutely aware that he was spilling all this with one of Karkat's close friends in the room. Not that they'd spoken much recently, from the sound of it.

"Rose, c'mon, use your imagination here. You know how it is when you start feeling differently about someone. Getting the cuddly shit in and all that."

She didn't look like she'd gotten all the information she'd wanted, but still she gave a short nod. "I'll use my imagination, then. What happened once the two of you reached the session inhabited by Dirk, Jake, Jane, and Roxy?"

"We took down the bad guys. Easy."

"And after that?"

"We decided to live together. Worked to build a home we both liked."

"And then?"

He shrank back defensively. "Nothing else. We decided it wasn't working and split."

"Except that's not really what happened, is it?" Rose asked, raising a brow. "Karkat had no part in the decision that led to your departure."

No. He didn't want to talk about this. "It doesn't matter who said what. We split and that was that."

"That's not the truth and you know it."

"It doesn't fucking _matter."_

"I'm the person who decides what matters, Dave. Now tell me what happened."

He had to fight with himself to stop his expression from giving away how tense he was. "No."

"Dave—"

"I said _no._ I came here as a favor to John, but that doesn't mean I'm going to spill all my trauma to you—assuming there's trauma in the first place, which there's _not._ I'm as trauma-less as a sleeping baby, let me tell you. _"_

Rose's features remained cool and relaxed. "John says you haven't been sleeping well. No reported nightmares, but he claims that you've been waking up late at night and leaving home, not returning for many hours."

"I like exploring at night, so what?"

"Your eating habits, then. John also reported a severe increase in your intake of sugary and otherwise fattening foods."

"I'm hungrier now that I'm running around exploring with John. So what?"

"Then how about your periods of silent, distracted staring? Are you just interested in spacing out for minutes at a time in the middle of a conversation with John?"

How much had John _told_ her? Everything? Was he living next to his best friend or his _dad?_

"From what I can tell, you are experiencing a form of disturbance that disallows restful sleep, increases the urge to consume fattening foods, and induces periods of distraction during which you are completely unresponsive to the world around you. The cause of these disturbances is Karkat—or rather, your relationship with him."

Dave's nails bit into the arms of the chair he was sitting in.

"And from what Kanaya has told me, Karkat is experiencing much the same thing, but on a far grander scale."

That made him pause. "Grander?"

"Trolls are volatile creatures, you understand." She reached forward casually to take a sip of her cooling tea. "Much more susceptible to emotional trauma, thus the need for a moirail in the first place—which Karkat doesn't have, I might add, despite Kanaya's attempts to act as a proxy. John has already asked me to take a look at him, but he seems completely unwilling to speak to or see me. But I will tell you that from what I've heard and observed personally, Karkat seems to be taking this whole thing in a very poor way."

The nightmares. He knew about them through John.

"Both of you are suffering because of what you did, Dave. If you would just tell me why you left, then maybe I could help you more effectively."

"I left because it wasn't working. End of story."

She didn't seem impressed. "You have nothing else to say on the matter?"

Dave just stared, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't giving her any more ammunition.

"If you have nothing to say, then perhaps you will allow me to put forth one of my own theories for discussion."

 _Oh no, here it comes…_

"I believe that you left Karkat not because it wasn't working, but because you thought leaving would somehow protect him."

"Rose."

"You've always believed that your presence is detrimental to those you interact with; I could tell from the instant I first saw the scarlet of your text sprawling across my computer screen. Following that theory, it stands to reason that once things became peaceful and you had time to think about what came next, you realized that allowing yourself to become emotionally entangled with Karkat would only hurt him, and so you ran away. Unfortunately, the two of you were already involved to the point of trauma on both of your behalves upon splitting. Karkat is showing his pain through forced solitude and violent nightmares, and you are showing yours through your late night stints and newfound obsession with exploring with John. Both of you are miserable, but neither are willing to admit it to the other."

"Rose!"

"If you would just talk to him, I'm sure this situation would be resolved. You clearly still care for him, otherwise you would not be reacting this way—and Karkat's vehement insistence that he wants nothing to do with you indicates the same. I'm sure that communication would—"

 _"Rose!"_

She jumped, startled, and the flow of words stopped. She stared at Dave, eyes wide as if she truly hadn't realized that every word was pushing him towards his inevitable snap. "I apologize," she whispered. "I didn't mean to offend."

Dave glared, but he knew she couldn't tell from behind his shades. "It's no sweat," he lied. "Let's just wrap up this little therapy session and continue next time, yeah?"

Rose watched as he got to his feet, expression a mixture of guilt and concern. "Dave, I'm sorry. Truly, I am. I didn't realize how sensitive a subject this was for you."

"It's cool. But I should really get going now. Places to explore, people to avoid—those kinds of things." He pushed in his chair as an afterthought. "I'll see you later. Promise."

Rose mirrored him, getting to her feet and taking a small step forward as he started backing towards the door. "I'd like very much for you to visit again, Dave. If you happen to see Karkat, please tell him that we're working very hard on alchemizing a recuperacoon for him. And I know that this may further invoke your anger, but I feel that I must reiterate just how necessary it is that you talk to Karkat about this."

" _Goodbye_ , Rose."

"Dave, please—!"

The door slammed, and her voice was lost behind it.


	4. John: Discover Something Horrible

**Oh no, I thought today was Thursday. I thought I didn't have to post for two more days, not that I should have posted two days ago! I'm sorry!**

 **Chapter 4:** **John: Discover Something Horrible**

* * *

 _Karkat dove to one side as a beam of plasma cut through the air where his head had been moments before. Behind him, metal shrieked as it was torn to shreds by the blast of pure energy._

 _"Aww, now that's no fun!" a voice snarled. He knew that voice, he did—but he couldn't place it. When he looked up at the advancing troll in an attempt to identify him, all he could see was a vague outline with a shadowed face. "Stay put, Kar, so I can put you down like the landdwellin' scum you are!"_

 _The way he spoke was familiar, but Karkat was too busy scrambling to his feet to stop and really think about just who was after him with a plasma gun. Another blast singed the hairs on the right side of his head as he flailed to one side to avoid certain death. He wasn't even sure where he_ was, _all he knew was that someone was after him, someone was trying to kill him, and he had to_ run. _And so run he did, jerking to his feet for a second time and staggering down the hallway as the other troll cackled behind him._

 _A hallway. A hallway lined with steel plates, a celling lined with steel plates, a floor lined with more fucking steel plates. A hallway in the lab. A hallway in the lab on the meteor._

 _He was back on the meteor._

 _"Can't run forever, Kar," that same voice sneered. "Sooner or later I'm shore to catch you, and then it's lights out for good!"_

 _Another blast. This one caught his shoulder just slightly, and the troll couldn't resist a pained yelp as the force of the blast pushed him into the wall. A laugh echoed down the hall, and he quickly righted himself and kept running. Did the hallway ever end?_

 _"Go ahead an' run, you fuckin', mutant! You'll never escape royalty!"_

 _Karkat thought he could see the end of the hallway. There was no door, though—why wasn't there a door? Was he trapped?_

 _There was a bright flash, and then a sickening pain overtook his entire right leg. His pursuer had shot right at him, catching him in the knee. After that, staying upright became an impossibility. He crashed to the ground, head catching briefly on the wall on the way down, and ended up sprawled out on his back as the other troll approached. He barely had the strength to move, pushing himself back until he was pressed against the end of the corridor. No door was in sight. He was completely trapped._

 _There was another flash of light, then a belated screech as a beam of plasma sliced through his other knee. He didn't even know if his legs were still_ there _anymore._

 _"Aww," his assailant purred. "Did that hurt?"_

 _He could only whimper as the figure drew closer, weapon held threateningly aloft in front of him. Another flash burned into his shoulder, then into his right side, searing at the delicate flesh of his gills. It was agonizing, but he'd lost the strength to scream._

 _"Would you look at that? Your blood really is candy-red, you freak. You_ mutant."

Mutant _. The word cut through him almost as painfully as the plasma. Yes, he was a mutant. A mutant because of his blood, a mutant because of his gills._

 _"You don't deserve to live. You were hatched by mistake, as a fluke in the hemospectrum. You never should have survived the trials. But that's okay, because I'm aboat to right the mistake that nature made all those sweeps ago. I'm goin' to krill you, Kar. Right here, right now."_

 _The weapon came up in a blur of light, and Karkat found himself staring right down the barrel of…_ something.

 _"Say goodbye, lowblood freak."_

 _"N-no…" Karkat tried to beg for his life, to say something,_ anything _that would get the troll to lower his weapon. But it was useless, he knew it was—and then the brightest flash yet seared straight through his think pan, and he could smell the scent of his own flesh burning, feel the way every single one of his senses was being ripped from him, hear the cackle of his assailant, taste blood dripping into his mouth, see a grin like a knife slash cutting across the face of the troll in front of him, and—_

Karkat jerked awake for the umpteen time that night, eyes already streaming watery red tears as he tumbled out of his sleep slat in his haste to wake himself up. He screeched when he landed hard on his shoulder, phantom pains shooting through his body where he'd been shot. Shaking fingers felt their way down his body, grabbing at his gills, pressing to his face, ghosting across his kneecaps, grabbing at every place that had been seared by the attacks of his assailant. Assured that he was still in one piece, he fought to get his breathing under control. Every breath rasped out far swifter than it should have as he untangled his limbs, curling back in on himself the instant he was no longer twisted around himself like pretzel. His head came to settle between his knees as he forced himself to breathe in slowly, then out at the same pace, over and over again. Eventually he felt the frantic beats of his blood puser begin to slow, gradually coming back into its normal range.

 _Another nightmare,_ he thought miserably. He'd tried to sleep as John said, but he'd already woken up several times due to his horrid dreams. Tonight's theme seemed to be being killed by his friends. It was better than the last time he'd slept, when he'd been tormented by visions of a shadowy figure chasing him with a club, or the time before that, when he'd been plagued with visions of his friends being torn apart in front of him.

 _I've had enough sleep,_ he decided as his breathing finally returned to its normal pace without him having to consciously slow it. _Enough to last me a few more days, at least._ He remained where he was, though, head held between his knees as he tried to shake off the horror of his dream. He needed to call someone, and mentally he counted the people he could message at this time of night.

Kanaya? No…he could tell she wanted to help, but she just wasn't the right person to go to with all of this. As he'd thought countless times before, he wasn't his moirail and she never would be. He just didn't feel that way about her.

Rose, maybe? She'd tried to talk to him just a few days ago about his sleeping problems. But he knew that if he tried to talk to her, she'd either psychoanalyze him to death or call Kanaya up, and he _really_ didn't want either of those things. Besides, he barely knew her.

He could try Jade; they'd been friends before being stuck in separate places for three years. But that had been three years ago, and they hadn't really spoken since. It would be weird to message her.

So…Dave. He was an option. But he'd pushed him away so vehemently after running into him in the middle of the forest; he couldn't imagine that the human would want to talk to him. He was just going to have to convince himself that Dave didn't want him anymore, had never really wanted him, had never enjoyed talking to him in the first place. They'd only grown close because of the meteor, and Dave had been quick to leave him behind once other options were available to him. John, namely.

 _Woah…where the fuck did that come from?_ Karkat curled in tighter on himself. _They're not like that. They're just friends; I'm not jealous._ He shook his head to clear the unpleasant thoughts.

 _I should call John,_ he found himself thinking, because he'd been so kind to him earlier that night. But then he stopped and really thought about it, and what exactly was he supposed to say when he messaged John? _Hey, sorry about waking you at three in the fucking morning, but I'm a complete mess and need someone to let me snot all over their shoulder while I piece myself back together._

Not likely.

But his husktop was already in front of him, and the trollian window was already open, and _what the actual fuck was he doing right now?_

He stopped himself just before he sent the first message. Logged out of the program. Shut his husktop. Pushed it aside.

He couldn't message John. He'd already been such a burden on him; he couldn't take bothering him any further, despite what he'd said.

 _I'll eat something, then,_ he decided. But his stomach gurgled in protest, and he knew instinctively that he wouldn't be able to keep anything down. He hadn't been able to eat properly for days, _weeks._ Getting a handful of popcorn down earlier that night had been a blessing.

He eyed his husktop. He could call John. He could call him and he would come here and comfort him. He knew he would, even if he didn't want to, even if he wasn't obligated to, because he couldn't bear to hurt anyone's feelings. But he forced his hands away from the keys for a second time and instead chose to get to his feet, knees shaking slightly as he staggered towards the door. _I should at least go grab something to drink from the meal block._

He walked out into the hallway. Then he paused, hair standing on end as he felt just how cold his hive was. His breath was practically fogging in the air around him. _That's not normal._

He picked his way carefully down the hallway towards the meal block, feeling strangely nervous. Something malevolent was in the air, swirling out in tendrils and reaching down his throat, straining and squeezing his blood pusher. Was it just in his head? Or…

He jumped as a strange sound met his ears. He _knew_ that sound. He heard it every time he placed a hand on the wall to steady himself.

It was the sound of claws scraping across a solid surface. Across his _walls._

His breath immediately shortened. He wracked his think pan for who exactly could be in his hive and came up with only Kanaya, who he _knew_ wasn't in his hive because _why the fuck would she be in his hive at three in the morning?_

He decaptchalogued his sickles as he crept to the end of the hall, ready to defend himself against whatever was in his hive. Maybe it was one of the lusus creatures from the forest that had found its way in. But what creature had good enough motor control to be scraping its claws continuously along the walls like that?

The scraping sounded close. Karkat reached the end of the hall, knuckles white as he grasped his sickles. Then he peered around the edge, searching for whatever was lurking around, and—

There was nothing there.

Karkat frowned, stepping fully out of the hallway and staring into the meal block, then the relaxation block, where the couch had been shoved back against the far wall after John's departure. But to his confusion, there was no one. No creature, no troll, no human— _nothing_. The sounds had entirely stopped, too.

 _So I'm going crazy on top of everything else,_ he thought. _Great._

The troll stumbled into the meal block and reached for a glass, opening the thermal hull and reaching for a bottle of water. He emptied the contents of the bottle into the glass (Dave had often laughed at him for not drinking out of the bottle, but he could fuck off), then threw it back as fast as he could. Maybe dehydration was causing him to hear things. And _see_ things, like those dark purple eyes he'd noticed the night before.

Maybe he was just tired. No, he _knew_ he was tired. He really needed to sleep again, but he'd told himself that he could last a few more days and he _would,_ damn it!

He put his glass on the counter and made his way back towards his respiteblock, determined to keep himself awake _and_ sane.

It would be a challenge, he was sure.

†††

"Dave?" John asked sleepily, raising his head as he heard someone banging around in the kitchen. "Dave, is that you?"

"Yup. Don't worry about me, Egbert, just rooting around for something to take with me for a snack."

"Take with you?" John looked at the clock sitting beside the couch he'd fallen asleep on, realizing that it wasn't even seven in the morning yet. Wait—the couch? Why was he sleeping on the couch?

 _Oh._ His mind clicked as he remembered inviting Dave over after the two of them had finished up their respective conversations and returned to their homes. It had already been pretty late when Dave showed up, and John had already watched a few movies, so watching a few more with the blond had put him out like a light. He guessed that Dave had fallen asleep too, thus why he was messing around in the kitchen.

"I'm going out by myself today," Dave called, and there was the sound of a chip bag rustling. "Got something to hunt down."

"And what exactly is that?" John asked, sitting up and swinging his feet over to rest on the floor. "I could help you if you want! I'm not a great hunter, but I know the landscape really well!"

"I know you do, but this is something I should do by myself."

Now he was really curious. "Dave, what are you after?"

All noise ceased suddenly. Then there was a light huff, and Dave said, "Promise you won't laugh."

"Of course! I wouldn't laugh at you over something you take seriously."

Another whoosh of breath. Then Dave was appearing in the doorway, hair sticking up at odd angles, sunglasses slightly askew as he looked over at him. "Look. You said that Karkat saw something strange in the forest, right?"

John frowned, thinking back to the conversation he'd had with Dave after the two of them had met up for movie night. Dave hadn't been willing to tell him much about his conversation with Rose, but John had told Dave everything about his interaction with Karkat—and that included the troll's belief that he'd seen something with purple eyes in the forest. Dave had taken it seriously, even more so than John himself. "Yeah, what about it?"

Dave was silent.

He blinked as realization grasped him. "Wait…are you hunting down _that_ thing? The thing that may or may not have existed only as a result of Karkat's sleep-deprived state? The thing you don't even know is really out there?" Karkat hadn't looked like he was openly lying, but he'd been so exhausted lately that John couldn't deny that the troll could have imagined everything.

"Yeah," Dave sighed, running a hand through his hair as if he _knew_ how ridiculous it sounded. He probably did. "Well, I wouldn't say I'm _really_ hunting it. I'm not expecting to find anything, but still…" He trailed off, a troubled expression flickering across his features for the barest of moments. "I saw him the night he supposedly saw that thing. You didn't see his face; the guy was fucking terrified. He clearly saw _something_ out there, and I'm going to go hunt around in the area and see if I can find anything. A lusus creature, maybe."

Well…he supposed that it wasn't the _most_ ridiculous thing in the world. He had to agree, Karkat had looked really serious…and maybe it _had_ been a lusus creature, and the troll had just been confused. Exhaustion was one hell of a drug. "How long will you be gone?"

Dave shrugged. "As long as it takes to either find the thing or convince myself that it doesn't exist."

"And what am I supposed to do without my exploring buddy?"

"Go to Jake, I'm sure he'd love to explore with you."

"And you're sure you won't let me help you? Come on, Dave, we make a great team!"

"I know we do," he snorted, "but if this thing doesn't exist I'll just be dragging you on a wild goose chase.

"But—!"

"If you don't want to explore with Jake, then go see Karkat," Dave advised coolly. "Or watch a few hundred movies, or go visit Rose or Jade or something. Just don't follow me, got it? I just want to look around for a bit, there's no use in you getting involved."

He suspected that Dave wasn't telling him the whole truth about why he wanted to be alone. But still he agreed with a nod of his head, knowing that the blond wasn't going to budge. "Well, okay…be careful, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be more careful than chicken on a tightrope above a pool of foxes." He shot John a confident thumbs-up, and was gone before he could think to respond.

"Bye!" John called, even as Dave dipped out of earshot. "Look after yourself!"

†††

Dave stood in the place Karkat had claimed to see the strange creature. It was a small gap in the trees, not large enough to be called a clearing, with trees sprouting up in all directions. His eyes raked the ground for signs of the creature's existence, but all he saw was an obvious imprint where Karkat had fallen. Trekking around the place to look at all the trees, he saw no claw marks, no signs of anything having been there. The leaves Karkat had seen trembling remained untouched.

 _Is he crazy?_ he wondered, tilting his head just slightly. _He was so terrified; he had to have seen something. But maybe John is right, and this was because he hasn't been sleeping well. Maybe I should shoot Rose a message about it, see how close she is to alchemizing one of those weird beds that the trolls like sleeping in so much._

Dave reached out with gentle fingers, tracing a path along the trunk of the closest tree. He'd already been inspecting the little opening between the trees for what felt like hours and there was just _nothing._ He'd spread his search to the surrounding miles after that, and in a span of time that really _had_ been hours, he'd come up with absolutely nothing. Maybe the creature would only come out at night? But even if that was the case, there should be _some_ sign of it out in the forest. And he'd come up with nothing. Not even a single claw mark.

 _What did Karkat see? A figment of his own mind?_

A pang of concern assaulted him as he considered the very real possibility that Karkat had _imagined_ the creature in the forest, as John had suggested. Rose had mentioned something about him being in a bad way, but if he was to the point where he was imagining things because he hadn't slept in so long…

Dave bit at the inside of his cheek. Not for the first time, or even the _hundredth_ time in the past few months, he thought he wanted to go see Karkat. But really, what could he do for him? If he went to see Karkat they would just end up arguing, and that would make the troll feeling any worse. And that was ignoring the fact that seeing Karkat would ease the ache in his chest for a few moments, and then it would be back stronger than ever when they were parted again.

 _John's handling it,_ he told himself, trying to convince himself that there wasn't a spike of jealousy in his chest every time he thought about John going to comfort Karkat. He wondered if John had actually gone over to his house today, and if he was watching one of his shitty romcoms with troll in an attempt to cheer him up.

His phone dinged. It was John, right on cue.

\- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -

EB: dave!

EB: have you found anything out there yet?

TG: nah dude, not yet

TG: there's fuck all out here

TG: just a whole lot of useless trees

EB: oh

EB: well that's funny, because karkat is convinced that he heard that creature in his house at like three in the morning last night.

TG: what

EB: yeah dude, he seems really convinced!

EB: apparently he woke up from a nightmare and heard something dragging its claws across the walls,but when he went down to see what was going on there was nothing there.

TG: are there claw marks on the walls?

EB: hang on

EB: no, he says there's nothing there

EB: not a scratch anywhere in sight!

EB: strange, huh?

EB: ...

EB: dave?

TG: sorry, i got distracted for a moment

EB: you okay?

TG: yeah it's just

TG: karkat seemed so goddamn convinced that he saw something in the forest, but there's no sign that anything was ever here

TG: and now he's convinced that someone was in his house scratching up the walls, but there aren't any scratches there

TG: just seems a little suspect is all

EB: you think he's imagining things?

TG: i'm not sure what i think yet

TG: still letting the cogs in my head do their thing, you know?

TG: how does he look today?

EB: oh, i don't know

EB: i just messaged him real quick, i didn't go to see him or anything.

TG: oh

TG: yeah, right, forget i said that

EB: hey, dave...

EB: if you're really that concerned, maybe you should go see him yourself.

EB: i'm sure he'd appreciate the company.

TG: ...

EB: or i could go see him for you!

EB: if that makes you more comfortable, i guess?

EB: i did like hanging out with him yesterday.

TG: uh

TG: you know what, why don't you let me check on him today?

EB: you mean you're actually going to talk to him?

EB: dave, that's fantastic news!

TG: nonono

TG: i didn't say that, dude

TG: i'll just check on him from a distance, all ninja-like

TG: then i'll get out of there so fast

TG: you won't even be able to see me moving

EB: oh dave...

TG: i gotta go

TG: see you later bro

\- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -

Dave let out a silent string of curses as he stashed his computer back in his sylladex. _Goddamn it, I really just volunteered to go check on him. And why, because I was jealous of John going to comfort the guy? Really? He's not my boyfriend; if John wants to make a move on him he can._

He realized with a jolt that he was already flying in the direction of Karkat's home, a pit of jealousy bubbling in his stomach. _Fuck, I'm totally hopeless. Look at me, running off to him the moment I think someone else is trying to get close. And seriously, I_ know _that John isn't romantically interested in Karkat. He's told me as much a hundred times, and he never showed any signs of jealousy that I was so close to him. This is just me being a fucking idiot, nothing new._

The twin suns were already beginning to sink in the sky, he noted. He'd been hunting for a long time, to no avail.

 _Gotta head in soon,_ he realized. _It'll be night in a few hours, and it's obvious that there's no creature out here._ The thought made his stomach flip, and he was suddenly stricken with the desire to see for himself if there were really no claw marks on Karkat's walls. After all, Karkat was the one who'd told John there wasn't anything there, and he wasn't exactly in his right mind at the moment. Maybe he'd missed them…and if he had, and there were marks across his walls, then he definitely _wasn't_ crazy—and that was the news Dave wanted to hear more than anything else.

He wanted to see for himself.

And so…could talking to Karkat for a few minutes really hurt? He'd told John that he was just going to slip over and peek in the windows to make sure everything was fine, but…

He shook his head. _Yes, you moron, talking to him will hurt! Just go over there, don't let him see you, check out the walls without letting him see like a fucking ninja, and that will be that!_

Again he shook his head, as if in an attempt to physically shake such thoughts out of his head. He was already flying, already at Karkat's home, already drifting up to the door.

 _No,_ he told himself, standing on the porch and glaring and the door. _No,_ he told himself, seeing how his hand was reaching out to rap on the door. _Fucking no,_ he told himself, even as his knuckles made harsh contact with the sheet of wood separating him from Karkat. _Oh god, I'm such a moron._

He waited, half ready to fly away the second the door opened and say _fuck this_ to the entire situation. But the longer he waited without the door swinging open to reveal a furious troll, the more relieved he became, and the more _disappointed_ he became.

"Karkat?" he called hesitantly, taking a step back and peering up at the darkened windows. "Karkles, are you in there?"

No response. So he'd run off, had he? He'd be lying if he said he didn't feel a prickle of concern at the concept of Karkat disappearing again, considering what had happened last time.

 _I'll message him in a minute,_ he decided. _First, let's see about those claw marks._

He tried the door. It was open, which was so unlike Karkat that Dave had to take a moment to just stare at the thing as it swung inwards to allow him access. Then he refocused, making his way into Karkat's home for the first time since he'd ditched him all those months ago.

It was… _dirtier_ than he remembered. But that was probably just Karkat and his refusal to clean it. There was a thin layer of dust over most things he came across, and he spotted a pile of old dishes in the sink as he poked his head into the kitchen. John was right—they looked _very_ old, as if Karkat hadn't really been using kitchenware much over the past few weeks. Moving into the living room, he saw that the couch had been pushed over to the far wall. There were loose kernels of popcorn scattered across the cushions, though, suggesting that this was where John had crashed for the movie marathon he'd described. And next to the couch…

Dave's heart sank as he saw the pile of blankets Karkat had dumped onto the ground. He'd spent a _lot_ of time with Karkat on the meteor; he was well acquainted with what piles were supposed to be used for.

 _He doesn't have a moirail to jam with, or even a matesprit to get some of his issues off his chest. He likes John, I can tell, but he's so defensive that he probably isn't sharing much with him._ Dismally, he recalled Karkat's multiple mentions of how crucial it was for trolls to be able to discuss their _emotions_ with someone else. If they didn't, the negative emotions would build and build and build, and then they would boil over into disastrous territory. The result of the boil-over of emotions was different for everyone, if he recalled correctly. Eridan had started murdering the other trolls, he remembered Karkat telling him. Gamzee had started collecting heads (but only _after_ the faygo wore off and he had no emotional crutch to speak of). Others had been known to go on homicidal rampages. Supposedly trolls on the lower end of the hemospectrum weren't as badly affected by such tendencies, but taking chances wasn't going to help anyone.

 _This will have to be dealt with,_ Dave realized. _Before he snaps and does something he'll regret. Hell, maybe that's what he's doing right now. Maybe he's out there waving his sickles at someone._

It was a joking thought, but it pierced right to the heart of his worry.

 _No time for that. Check for scratches, then you can worry about Karkat._

Dave immediately turned his eyes on the walls, shoving his face right up next to them, touching them with his fingertips and brushing the pads of them across the smooth surface in hopes of feeling something, _anything_ that could resemble the scratches Karkat had reported hearing. He even pushed his sunglasses slightly down the bridge of his nose, hoping that glaring at the walls with unobstructed scarlet eyes would help him see the scratches that so obviously weren't there. He traced the walls with his palms as he moved around the room, searching up and down and through every room in the lower levels where Karkat had heard the sounds. But no matter how hard he looked, he didn't see a thing.

No scratches. Not a single one.

He snatched his computer out of his sylladex and shot Karkat a quick message, praying he would respond and tell him where he was. But then he heard a ding from the kitchen table, and he looked over to see that _god damn it,_ the troll had left his laptop behind _again._

He should look for him. He should run out into the forest again and he should scoop Karkat off his feet and drag him back home where he belonged.

But then he thought back to John, who had messaged the troll just a few hours ago and gotten a response. Clearly Karkat hadn't just fallen of the face of the earth, and he probably wouldn't be pleased to see Dave again so soon.

 _I'll wait for him, then,_ he decided. _He won't want to see me, but at least I can make sure he's okay when he comes back. And if he isn't back within the hour, I'll go looking for him again._

And so he waited.

†††

Something was swimming in the ocean.

Karkat's eyes tracked it as it moved, a figure so far off in the distance that he couldn't make out how large it really was, or even _what_ it was. He could only see flickers of gray and purple twisting in the waves, coming up for a moment before diving back down out of sight, then repeating the process in a playful dance.

He watched it, enraptured. He wasn't quite sure why it was so fascinating to watch the creature. Something about the way it moved, more fluid and graceful than any lusus creature he'd seen in the water before, just seemed to draw his eyes to it like a magnet. It was smaller than the average beast, he thought. Most oceanic life on this planet was massive, but this thing looked far more miniature. Maybe even close to his size.

The waves crashed against the cliff face below him. The tide had risen to swallow the entirety of the beach, which meant he had to perch atop the cliff if he wanted to watch the ocean. It was beautiful today. Dull and gray.

The creature jumped above the waves, flickers of gray and purple slicing the dark water. It wasn't the same purple he'd seen in the eyes of that strange being in the forest, he recognized—this purple was brighter, more… _royal_.

Reminded him of Eridan, actually.

 _…Hmm?_ Karkat strained his eyes out at the ocean, taken aback. He couldn't be sure, but…for just a heartbeat he thought he'd seen a flash of orangey yellow against the waves. But it was gone as soon as it began, and then the _creature_ was gone too. _What the hell was that? It almost looked like…horns?_

 _"Kar."_

He jumped a good foot in the air, whirling around in a panicked fit. "What the fuck do you think you're—"

Then he stopped. He could have _sworn_ he'd heard a voice just then, but…there was no one behind him. No one to his right, either, and no one to his left. No one flying in the sky or peeking out from the forest.

 _Great…so I'm hearing things now. Guess I shouldn't be surprised after last night._

 _"Kar, can you hear me?"_

His sickles were in his hands the second he heard it again, and he was whirling around to strike at the air behind him before he had even a moment to process what he was doing. A half-terrified snarl broke the air as he swung, half expecting to slice through one of his friends who was trying to sneak up on him—but again there was nothing, and he was _certain_ he'd heard something behind him. _Right_ behind him, too, as in at the edge of the cliff where there was nowhere to go but down against the jagged rocks sticking out against the shoreline.

 _Crazy,_ he reminded himself. _I'm going crazy._

He captchalogued his sickles with a soft huff. The creature in the ocean really was gone now, he realized, not a hint of the familiar purple flickering against the dark water. He wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse.

He thought it probably made him feel worse.

†††

John flew listlessly above the large fields that sprawled out just to the west of their town. Dave had told him to stay away from the forest so that he could hunt, but he hadn't been able to keep himself still after learning that his best friend was out there tracking down something that could be incredibly dangerous (if it even existed). And so he'd flown out into the fields, listlessly drifting along in a cruel mockery of his usual enthusiasm to explore the world around him. He knew he wouldn't find anything new; he'd explored this area hundreds upon hundreds of times before.

He paused at the crest of a hill, taking a moment to just look out in all four directions. He almost reached for his phone, but had to stop and remind himself that he'd already bugged Karkat once today, so another unnecessary pesterchum message would probably just make him upset. He'd certainly seemed upset that morning when John had messaged him, going on and on about scratches that he was certain he'd heard but couldn't seem to find on the walls. And as much as he wanted to know if Dave had found anything, he also knew that setting off the alert on Dave's phone could put him in danger if he was in the middle of stalking a dangerous lusus creature. So he forced his fingers away from where they were reaching for his sylladex and forced them to lay lax at his sides as he started moving again.

He really hoped that Dave would work things out with Karkat soon. He could see how much the blond cared about him, but he was just so _stubborn._ He was dead set on thinking that being with Karkat would just hurt him, and they were both suffering because of it. _He's such an idiot. And Karkat is too, for not going to talk to someone sooner!_ He was overcome with the desire to snap at Karkat—and he would have done it, too, if not for the sight of something very, _very_ red on the other side of the field.

He drew to a halt, a flicker of alarm shooting through him as he saw just how very _red_ that thing was. He couldn't tell what it was from a distance, but it was decidedly unnatural. He rocketed forward, movements driven by a combination of curiosity and fear, and the closer he got the more he realized that something was horribly, _terribly_ wrong.

There was a pool of scarlet around it. A pool that branched outwards from a central point like a deadly halo, covering an obscene amount of the brownish grass laid across the field. As John drifted even closer, he saw that the form lying in the center of the pool had distinctly white skin, even though said skin was mostly stained scarlet. Her—and it _was_ a her, he recognized—clothing was in tatters, a formerly cream-colored robe slashed to bits and soaked through with the same liquid that was surrounding her body.

"Oh god…" John breathed, because he knew just from looking that the red substance was blood, and that nothing could lose that much of it and come out alive. He set his feet down on the stained grass, cringing when he felt the way it squished beneath his feet, scarlet bubbling up around the edges of his shoes. He padded closer with light steps, throat closing up at the thick scent of copper filling his lungs. And then he crouched down, careful not to let his knees touch the ruined ground, and reached out a hand to roll the figure onto her back. He nearly gagged when he saw the way her head lolled limply on her shoulders, blood dribbling from what appeared to be two deep slashes in her throat. Now that he was this close, he could tell what she was.

A prospitarian.

She was from the village, if he wasn't mistaken. He didn't remember her name, wasn't sure if he'd _ever_ known it, but he knew enough to recognize her face. She was one of the merchants that lined the streets. But…what had she been doing out here? Judging by the bloodied pack slung over one shoulder, he guessed that she may have been on her way to the neighboring village where the salamanders had taken up residency. But something had obviously gone wrong along the way. Something had caught her, and had cut her down brutally.

 _This is the first death that's occurred since we came to this world,_ John realized. _Our first tragedy._ He raked his eyes further down the prospitarian's form, noticing with sadness that she had copious tears and slashes across her formerly pristine skin. It would have been a swift death, at least—it looked like her neck had been snapped cleanly upon initial impact with whatever had attacked her.

He drew back, lifting off the ground and fighting back another gag when he saw blood dripping from his shoes. His first instinct was to call an adult, ask them how to deal with the body. But then he realized that he _was_ the adult on this planet, and that there wasn't really anyone he could call that would know what to do better than he would.

And he had _no clue_ what he was supposed to do in this situation.

He flew back out of the splash radius and lowered himself onto the grass, grabbing his laptop out of his sylladex and opening pesterchum. _Rose,_ he decided. _She might have some ideas._

He fired off a quick message, eyes constantly flickering back to the slaughtered prospitarian, and hoped that Rose would respond soon.

†††

Karkat returned to his hive hungry, exhausted, and sorely in need of something to drink. He'd fled the cliffside shortly after hearing that strange voice (which he absolutely did _not_ recognize, no matter what his think pan was trying to tell him) and had practically sprinted back through the forest in his haste to reach it before the sun set. He remembered all too well what had happened the last time he was out after sunset.

The troll trudged tiredly up the front steps and pushed his door open with a light touch. He'd left it unlocked when he left for a reason that now seemed completely foolish.

He closed and locked the door behind him with a heavy sigh, moving for the kitchen. He really needed a glass of water. He was already on edge as he walked, shoulders hitched high as he mulled over the strange events of the past several days. And so when he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, his first instinct was to take his sickles in hand and lunge threateningly for it.

He swung viciously towards whatever had been moving in his periphery, expecting it to dissolve into smoke or disappear entirely the instant he lashed out. Everything else had been doing that lately, after all. And so when he was met with the clang of metal on metal and an indignant, "Dude, what the fuck?" he realized that he'd just swung at a very familiar head of blond hair.

"Dave?" he voiced, surprised. "What…?"

"I was _hoping_ to check up on you, but it looks like you're more interested in slicing my fucking head off! This is the second time you've attacked me, dude!"

Karkat stared in shock for a moment. Then he recoiled, sickles disappearing back into his sylladex as he realized what he'd almost done. Anger bubbled up in the pit of his stomach, but it was more aimed at himself than at anyone else.

"What," Dave snapped, "no response? Don't know what to say after nearly taking my goddamn head right off my shoulders?"

"Sorry," Karkat managed to choke out, but it was filled with undertones of frustration.

"You'd better be sorry!" was the answering snarl. Dave was practically bristling as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen, sword held threateningly aloft. "I didn't realize you hated me enough to take a serious swing at me!"

"What? No, that's not—!"

"No, no, message received." The sword disappeared. "I'll leave you here, Karkat, since that seems to be what you want. You can go and chum it up with John, just leave me the fuck out of it!" And then he was trying to push past him, and Karkat was so shaky from lack of sleep and food that it took no strength at all to crush him helplessly against the wall as he moved for the door.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_ Karkat caught his balance, and before he could stop himself he was reaching out and grabbing at Dave's shoulder. _I won't let this happen to us!_ "Dave!"

The blond whirled around, teeth bared as he threw his hand off his shoulder. "What, are you aiming to finish the job?"

"I wasn't trying to attack you, fuckass!" Karkat bit out furiously.

"Yeah right, like hell I'm going to believe—"

"I thought you weren't really there! I thought I was going to swing at you and then you would disappear like the last time!" _Like what happened on the clifftop. Like what happened with those scratches last night. Like what happened in the forest a few days ago._

Dave paused. "What?"

Whoops. That had probably been the wrong thing to say…

The human turned fully now, asking, "Are you saying you swung at someone and they disappeared?"

He tried to recover. "It was a dream. Some moron was coming at me with a sword, I swung, he disappeared. End of story."

Dave's poker face actually morphed, then, features twisting angrily and locking there. "You're a horrible liar. Always have been."

"It's the truth!"

"Like hell! Tell me what happened, Karkat, _now!"_

"You don't get to order me around," he growled. "And if you're going to try, then maybe you _should_ just leave!"

Dave looked like an affronted cat, every inch of him vibrating with fury. "Fuck off, I'm not leaving until you tell me what's been going on with you!"

"Then you'll be here for a hell of a long time, because there's no fucking way I'm baring my soul to someone who ripped my blood pusher out and trampled all over it like a hoofbeast romping across the battlefield!"

Oh, _that_ got a satisfying reaction out of him. Dave's expression fell suddenly, and it was obvious that he was biting his tongue. "Well you have to talk to someone, because from where I'm standing it looks like you're going out of your goddamn mind!"

Karkat opened his mouth to fire back, but words failed him for the first time _ever_. His throat closed up, his tongue fell heavy to the bottom of his mouth, and he could feel his eyes prickling. _Oh fuck no. I am_ not _going to cry in front of this insufferable wiggler._

"Karkat?"

Great. Dave had noticed his expression crumple.

"Um…you doing okay there?"

Gog, Dave was as awkward as he'd always been with emotional situations. Completely hopeless. Then again, _he_ wasn't much better.

"Shit, dude, are you—?"

"Just leave," Karkat rasped. "Get the fuck out, Dave."

"Really, I didn't mean to—"

"Just _leave."_ If Dave stayed here, if he kept looking at him with that concerned face, he knew he would break. He would break and scream at him for leaving, roar with all his strength about how _badly_ he'd hurt him, and he didn't think he could take it. Not now, when he was already on the edge because of the strange things he'd been seeing.

Dave teetered uncertainly in the hallway. "I really don't think I should leave if you're going to do something stupid."

"What do you think I'm going to do?" he snapped. "Off myself? I'm not that pathetic. It takes more than a few waking nightmares to put me down for good."

Still, Dave hesitated. "Look, this didn't go the way I wanted it to. I didn't come here to scream at you, I came here to make sure you were okay. And if you saw something else, you should tell me about it."

A low growl started in the back of his throat. "If I tell you, will you leave?"

"Maybe."

He glared.

"Okay, okay…" Dave's hands rose in front of him defensively. "I'll leave _after_ you tell me."

"You'd fucking better." He glared. "Now—if you really want to know, then today I just so happened to run across a strange _thing_ swimming in the ocean while I was sitting around on top of that cliff we used to go to all the time. Then it vanished and I heard a voice say something behind me, but when I swung at it there was nothing there. I heard it again, freaked out, and ran home. Then I ran into _you,_ and my day got about a thousand times worse."

"You're hearing voices?"

"No, bulgemunch, I heard _one_ voice. And I only heard it two times in the span of five minutes."

Dave watched him skeptically. "Karkat, if you're hearing voices this is a lot more serious than we thought."

"I'm _fine._ I told you what happened, now get out!"

Dave continued to watch him. His gaze was completely unwavering as he said, "No."

 _"What?"_

"I said _no_." He took a step back towards the kitchen. "You know, everyone has been telling me that you're in horrible shape, but I just thought they were overreacting. Even when John told me you were imagining claws scraping along your walls, I thought that maybe you had a chance of recovery as long as you could just find a moirail or _someone_ to talk to. But you're too goddamn stubborn to find a moirail, and you're not willing to talk to anyone else."

"Strider, I swear to fucking gog—"

"I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to stay here until you told me what was wrong."

"I told you what it was! I heard a weird voice, took a swing at it, and here I am! End of story!"

Dave brushed past him for a second time, making his way into the living room and plopping down on the couch with a determined cross of his arms. "Not fooling anyone, dude. I'm staying right here until you fess up to what's really been going on with you these past few months."

"Then you'll be sitting there a lot time," Karkat sneered. His heart was leaping excitedly at the thought of Dave being here again, where he _belonged,_ but there was no way in hell he could show it. Dave had made it abundantly clear that he didn't want him anymore, and he knew what humans said about coveting.

Dave shrugged. "Hope you're ready to put up with me, Vantas."

"I am _not—!"_

Dave's phone made the sound of a pesterchum message coming through, cutting him off mid-sentence. The blond snatched the device out of thin air and turned his eyes down on it, features cool and collected. But then he jolted straight up in his seat, one hand waving in alarm, and he exclaimed, "Holy _fuck_ , this will have to wait."

"Hmm? What is it?" Karkat walked closer as Dave held out his phone, displaying a pesterchum window with John's screen name plastered across it. He swept his eyes across it, forehead creased with irritation at being interrupted. But then his eyes widened as the words processed in his think pan, and he breathed out, "…What?"

Dave shoved the phone back into his sylladex and shot to his feet. "I think we'll need to take a rain check on the little hissy fit you were throwing."

Karkat was too shocked to realize he was being insulted. "Dave, someone is—"

"Dead," he finished. "Yeah, Karkles. Looks like we have a murderer on our hands."


	5. Dirk: Accuse Someone of Murder

**Chapter 5:** **Dirk: Accuse Someone of Murder**

* * *

For the first time in ages, they were all gathered together. Every troll and human and cherub still on the planet had been appeared for the meeting, and even Terezi was keeping tabs on the conversation through trollian.

"This is serious," John said for what felt like the hundredth time, hovering high enough for everyone to see him. They'd chosen to gather in the town square, which meant that the prospitarians and dersites could hear what was being discussed. It would be good for them to have a part in the proceedings, considering it was one of their own that had been killed. "One of the prospitarians was _murdered_ out there, you guys, and we have no idea who or what did it!"

"It could have been a lusus creature," Jade suggested, looking up with bright, worried eyes. "They can be quite vicious, you know!"

"Sounds like a lusus creature to me," Roxy agreed from the other side of the town square. "Those things have some wicked claws on them."

"Yes, but none of those claws are long enough to nearly _sever a prospitarian's head from her shoulders_ in one clean swipe! I'm telling you guys, this wasn't a lusus creature."

"Then just what are you suggesting did this?" Rose asked, tilting her head to one side. "Surely you're not insinuating that one of _us_ killed a prospitarian? Or one of the other members of our village or of the surrounding settlements?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," John said. "All I know is that a prospitarian is dead, and the thing or person that killed her had _wickedly_ long claws."

"Claws…" Dirk murmured, pointed shades angled up towards John. "Are you certain it was _claws_ that did this? Do you remember what the wounds looked like?"

John blinked at him, surprised. He always forgot that Dirk was far more intelligent than he acted. "Um…there were two _very_ deep slash marks across the throat, and a whole lot of smaller cuts all over her body. It looked like her neck was broken, too, from a pretty serious impact with her attacker."

"Two slash marks across the throat?" Dirk echoed. "Were they identical? Like they were delivered with two of the same weapon at the same time?"

 _Weapon?_ John thought, not liking where this was going. But still he nodded, saying, "Yeah, they were completely identical."

Dirk's head turned minutely. "So let me get this straight—there were two identical slash marks to the throat, most likely delivered with two of the same weapon at the same time, and those slash marks are far too deep to have come from the claws of a lusus beast but clean enough to look like they _were_ delivered by some kind of claw-like weapon. Are we _really_ confused about who did this?"

John blanched. "What?" And at the same time Dave bristled, figuring out what his brother meant far before anyone else did.

"A prospitarian is _dead,_ Dirk, and accusing someone of murder is a hell of a lot more serious than beating them into the ground every time they try to talk to your boyfriend!"

Jake yelped in embarrassment, but everyone ignored him as the realization of just what Dirk was suggesting washed over all of them at once.

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me?" Karkat roared, and Dave had to grab him by the shoulders as he tried to lunge at Dirk's throat.

"That is quite the accusation!" Jade gasped.

"Yes," Rose agreed, "making such accusations based only on assumption is a very serious thing."

Dirk shrugged. "Just saying, it seems like the guy that fights with two _claw-like_ sickles should be our biggest suspect right now."

"Woah!" John tried, "let's not—!"

"What's your _problem?"_ Dave snapped, squaring his shoulders at Dirk. "Everyone knows you've had it out for Karkat since I dumped him, but finding the real murderer is more important than your grudge!"

"I'm just throwing it out there, dude," Dirk said. "The guy's been unstable since you left, doesn't seem like it would take much to send him right over the edge."

From his vantage point, John could clearly see the way Dave stiffened. "Hey, guys…" he tried again, hoping to diffuse the situation. "Let's just calm down!"

Dirk didn't even seem to hear him. "He's a ticking time bomb, and you all know it!"

Karkat's lips drew back in an ugly sneer. "Say that to my face, fuckass!" Then he finally managed to break free of Dave's hold, and no one reacted fast enough to stop him from lunging forward, sickles already in hand and poised to strike.

"Karkat!" Dave screeched. "No!"

But Dirk's katana was already out and in front of him, and in one smooth motion he caught the troll's sickles and flung them away, kicking him to the ground and planting a foot firmly on his chest. His sword swept downwards, and a heartbeat later Karkat was looking up through wide eyes as cool steel pressed to his throat.

"Right," Dirk huffed, "you're not unstable at all." He looked up to the people surrounding him, each of them wearing identical expressions of horror. "Should I let him up, or are you worried you'll be next?"

For a moment, there was nothing but silence. But then Roxy was the one to step forward, expression grim as she commanded, "Let him go, Dirk. This has gone too far."

"So you want to be killed," Dirk clarified in a low tone. But still he moved back, and Dave swooped in a moment later to drag Karkat back before he could do anything else to condemn himself.

"John," Rose said, "when would you estimate this murder took place?"

He paused to think. "Well, she couldn't have been dead for more than a couple hours when I found her. The blood was so fresh; none of it had dried yet."

"And when did you find her?"

"Oh, uh…I think it was like seven in the afternoon when I grabbed my phone to message everyone?"

"Okay, then, that would put the time of the murder at around six in the evening." She turned to Karkat, who was being dragged roughly to his feet by Dave. "Karkat, if you would be so kind, can you tell us what you were doing between five and six in the afternoon yesterday?"

Karkat looked away irritably. "I was hanging around that set of cliffs behind my hive. Happy?"

"And was anyone with you at the time? Or rather, is there any way you could prove that's where you were?"

"No, I was by myself!" he spat. "By myself, as always, hanging my legs over the edge of a fucking cliff!"

"Knew it," Dirk snarked. "You don't have an alibi, do you?"

"And I suppose _you_ do, shitface?"

Jake jumped in nervously. "Actually, I was with Dirk all day yesterday! The two of us were having a grand old time, exploring ruins and such, and—"

"See?" Dirk said, cutting him off. "Neither of us could have committed the murder.

Rose pressed two fingers delicately to the bridge of her nose. "The two of you have solid alibis, then. And Kanaya, Roxy, Callie, and I were in the lab at about that time yesterday. Dave, what were you up to?"

The blond was most likely glaring, but it was hidden by his shades and his cool expression. "I was out hunting in the forest. You're free to check my pesterchum account; I'm sure I sent John a few messages about between six and seven, and it's not like I could have done that while I was chopping up a corpse."

"That's right!" John agreed quickly. "I messaged Dave not long before I found the body, so he couldn't have been the one to do it."

"And what about you, Jade? And Jane?" Rose asked.

"Oh, Jade was at my place!" Jane chirped. "I was teaching her how to make the most delightful pastry!"

Rose nodded. "Understood."

Dirk snorted. "Well, it sounds like the only one that can't prove where he was is Karkat. And judging from what you all just saw, it seems he's quick to swing those sickles around."

Uncomfortable glances were exchanged. Dave in particular looked perturbed, and John found himself wondering if something had happened between him and Karkat since the last time they'd spoken.

"I find this to be completely unrealistic," Kanaya spoke up at last. "I have known Karkat since we were very young, and he is deathly afraid of blood. I find it hard to believe that he would exploit his own fear by murdering someone in cold blood."

"He had no reason to attack," Rose agreed. "Where's his motive?"

" _Someone_ killed the prospitarian!" Dirk pointed out. "Who could have done it if not him?"

"There are a number of possibilities," Rose murmured, but she looked troubled as she said it. "A rogue dersite, for example, or perhaps a lusus creature we have not yet had the displeasure of encountering."

"Right," Dirk huffed. "Well when you run out of options and want me to put him down, give me a call."

John opened his mouth to interject, horrified, but Dave was already there. The blond flash stepped across the center of town with impossible speed, and the next moment a pair of blades met with the ear-piercing shriek of metal on metal.

"This is uncalled for," Dave growled. "We both know you're not doing this because you really think Karkat did it. You just hate him for what you _think_ he did to me."

"You cared about him, didn't you?" Dirk spat back. "You cared about him and he hurt you—and he's going to _pay._ Striders don't take shit from anybody, isn't that what you told me once?"

Dave's lips curled into a hideous snarl. "That's not what happened! I've told you a hundred times, I broke up with him for his own safety! He had nothing to do with the decision!"

That only made things worse. "You gave up your happiness to protect him, and that's just as bad as him taking it forcibly!"

"Fuck off, that's not what happened and you know it!"

Dirk didn't seem to hear him, and carried on with a furious, "And now you're defending him blindly, coming to his defense like a dog plodding after its master. I thought you dumped him, so why the hell are you still—?"

 _"No one_ deserves to be falsely accused of murder!"

"You've seen those sickles, dude, and you _know_ how unstable he is right now. If you would just open your eyes _,_ you would see how likely it is that he's the one who did this."

"Dirk, I swear to fucking god, if you don't drop this _groundless—!"_

A blast of energy flashed between the two Striders, forcing them back with a set of identical yelps. Eleven sets of eyes locked on Rose, who stood calmly with one of her wands held aloft. "That's _enough."_

"Yeah, this is getting out of hand." Roxy flew to Dirk's side and gripped his arm, hauling him up and tossing him at Jake. "Jake, control your boyfriend."

"Oh, but I'm really—!"

Rose talked right over him. "John, get Dave."

John blinked, shaken suddenly out of his stunned stupor. Then he darted over to his best friend and mirrored Roxy, keeping a firm grip on his friend's shoulder.

"Get off me!" Dave hissed, tugging at John's arm.

John tightened his grip, placing himself in between Dave and Dirk. "Dude, calm down! You're just making things worse!"

Dave glared, the expression given away by the creases between his brows. But then he leaned away, eyes flickering briefly to Karkat (still seething, John noted), and deflated completely. He said nothing, just stared bitterly at the ground.

John turned his gaze on the accused troll. Karkat's nails were biting into his palms, trickles of red slipping down his fingers in thin rivulets. His entire body seemed far tenser than usual, jaw visibly clenched, veins standing out on his neck even through his thick skin. "Okay," John murmured, shifting over to stand in front of the fuming troll. "Calm down, Karkat…no one here thinks you did this but Dirk."

Karkat wasn't looking at him. He was glaring over his shoulder, obviously trying to get a look at his accuser.

"Karkat!" John insisted, shifting again to block his line of sight. "How about we get you home? You look tired; did you sleep last night?" His attempts were fruitless. The troll wasn't listening. "Hey, Karkat!" He reached up without thinking, one hand gripping his tense shoulder as the other rose to bat at his face lightly. He tapped his cheek once, twice, three times. And oh, _that_ worked.

Karkat's eyes were on his in a heartbeat. The troll blinked, seeming almost puzzled as all the tension drained out of him. "John…?"

He frowned. Why was Karkat giving him that odd look? He was just trying to get his attention. "Yeah," he said, patting the troll's cheek again. "Calming down a little?"

He stared like a deer caught in the headlights. "Y-you…do you realize what you're…?"

"Hmm? What are you talking about?"

Just like that, the tension flooded back into Karkat's body. "Right," he grumbled, refusing to make eye contact. "I forgot…you humans are so gogdamn culturally insensitive."

 _What?_

Rose cleared her throat, and John's head snapped back in her direction. She was giving him an odd, almost pitying look. "Developing interpersonal relationships aside, it's obvious that something must be done about this. For now, I propose we disband this meeting to cool our heads. A funeral will be held for the prospitarian, and I myself will examine the body to see if anything else can be determined. In the meantime, let's behave _civilly_ about this and not leap at each other's throats like wild animals." She swept her gaze across the surrounding people, lingering on Dirk momentarily. "Is that acceptable?"

Dirk looked away jerkily. "Yeah, whatever. But just so we're clear, Jake and I will be keeping our door locked in case _someone_ decides he wants to start hunting larger game."

Karkat bared his teeth, but John swooped in before things could get out of hand again. "That sounds great. Right, guys?"

The others all gave nods ranging from reluctant to horrified. Clearly no one had expected this meeting to take the turn it had, and even the gentlest among them were eyeing Dirk and Karkat with something akin to nervousness.

 _They think he's right,_ John realized with a sinking stomach. _They think that Karkat is volatile and dangerous…and after that display, it's hard to argue against it._

The crowd began to disperse. Roxy and Callie vanished without a word, Jade and Jane slipping away a moment later. Next went Jake, dragging a glaring Dirk away from the scene. His expression was murderous, clearly displeased with being hauled off.

Rose watched them leave, features schooled into an expression of neutrality. Then she turned, seeing that all others had left, and faced Karkat with a slight tilt of her head. "Karkat?"

The troll looked up with a halfhearted glare. "What do you want?"

"If there is anything else you know, now would be the time to tell me. With Dirk gone, you won't be harmed for speaking up."

"He wouldn't be harmed even if Dirk _were_ here," Dave bit out, but no one listened.

"I don't know anything," Karkat assured her sulkily. "I'm not expecting you to believe me, but I really _was_ out by the ocean."

Rose blinked. "Oh, no—Karkat, by no stretch of the imagination do I believe that you were responsible for this."

"You don't?" John asked, words echoed a heartbeat later by John and Karkat.

"No," Rose said. "Kanaya has assured me that murder isn't your style, and I am prepared to believe her. Besides, I spent enough time with you on the meteor to know that this isn't your style." She inclined her head in Kanaya's direction. "Isn't that right?"

Kanaya nodded. "Yes, it is. I have known Karkat since I was very young, and not once has he shown any of the violent tendencies so common to our species. He is without a doubt the gentlest troll I have ever known, sharp tongue aside."

"Hey!" Karkat protested, even as John sighed in relief and Dave's shoulders slumped slightly.

"Terezi agrees with me," she went on. One hand lifted, holding a phone displaying an active trollian window. "I'm the one that's been updating her on the proceedings here, and she is entirely in your favor, Karkat."

"Well that's just fucking great," he grumbled. "As long as I have the psychotic blind girl on my side, everything should be fine."

"It's not just her," Rose reminded him. "Everyone here right now is on your side, even if some of our fellow humans are… _concerned,_ shall we say, with the display you've just put on."

The troll glared at the ground. "Not my fault. You _heard_ what he fucking said about me!"

"And you only served to heighten his suspicions by attacking him," was the cool response. "Next time, the best course of action would be to argue your way out rather than blindly swinging at your antagonist. I thought you of all people would understand that, seeing as you're in possession of such a _sharp tongue,_ as Kanaya put it."

Karkat opened his mouth to snap out a response, but then seemed to think better of it. "Fuck. Yeah, okay."

Rose gave a polite nod of approval. "I would advise you to lay low while this blows over. When I examine the body, I will do everything in my power to find evidence of your innocence. But until then…well, you saw how ready Dirk is to defend himself from what he perceives is a threat." She looked to John, then to Dave. "The two of you will protect him from anything that may occur, will you not?"

John nodded fervently. "Yeah, of course!" His gaze swung to Karkat, soft and full of concern. "We'll take care of you, Karkat."

"I don't _need_ to be taken care of, fuckass!" the troll seethed. "I've lost some sleep, but that doesn't make me helpless! I could still kick your ass right here right now!"

John had to clamp his teeth down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from grinning. Karkat losing his temper was just so… _so._ There was no word for it.

Dave, on the other hand, didn't seem amused. "Swallow your pride, dude. This isn't about being helpless, this is about someone with a katana swinging it full force at your face."

"I can fucking handle myself!"

"Did you _see_ how fast Dirk had you on the ground?" was the scathing response. "I'm telling you, if he decides to strike preemptively to get rid of the _murderer_ before he strikes again, and if no one is around to stop him, he'll put that sword through your gut before you have the chance to so much as blink."

John winced at the comment in unison with Karkat, but he knew that Dave spoke the truth. The troll had never been the best fighter, and his recent lack of sleep had left him frazzled and on edge.

Dave was still rambling. "You'll be dead, dude, so fucking dead that we won't even be able to recognize you when someone finally finds your corpse and drags it to the funeral home that one dersite started up down the street, so _intensely_ dead that no one will be able to clean all the blood out of the—"

"Karkat," John interrupted, cutting Dave off before he could really get going. "How about I stay with you for a while? At least until this whole mess gets cleared up and we can convince Dirk that you're not a murderer."

His suggestion was met with a sharp glance from Dave and a well-hidden flicker of hope from Karkat.

"Huh?" Dave turned to face him, arms crossing over his chest. "Dude, what the fuck? You're just going to up and leave me living alone out there?"

"I'm sorry, Dave, but I really think this is more important! It's been really fun living together, but if there's a chance Dirk is going to target Karkat—"

"Then _I'll_ stay with him, there's no reason you should have to go our of your way to help that shouty asshole."

That made him pause. Something about the way Dave was watching him, eyes flitting constantly back to Karkat, struck him with familiarity. No…was Dave…?

"Oh my god!" John gasped. He grabbed Dave by the arm and hauled him up into the air, making sure they were well out of earshot before whispering, "Dave, are you _jealous?"_

"What?" Dave snapped. "Nah, man, no such a thing as a Strider being jealous."

His eyes widened. "Oh man, you totally are!"

"No. Fuck you."

"Dave!" he groaned. "You're _so_ jealous; you're practically turning green!"

"Straight up, I am the _least_ jealous person in the world. I am so not jealous, in fact, that—"

"You _are_ jealous—but you shouldn't be, because you broke up with him! Remember that little detail, Dave? You seem to have forgotten that you ditched him!"

He hesitated. "Yeah, but…"

"If you're over him, you shouldn't feel jealous at all. That is, unless you're still attached, in which case…" He trailed off suggestively, nodding his head down to where Karkat was glaring up at them.

"I'm a lot of things, but _attached_ to that asshole is not one of them."

He snickered. Dave _was_ a lot of things—and being hopelessly in love with Karkat was _definitely_ one of them, even if he refused to acknowledge it. "Then you shouldn't mind if I go live with him and make sure nothing happens!"

Dave bared his teeth. "Do you really think you can fend off Dirk if he decides he wants Karkat dead? The guy is fast, John—way too fast for your windy powers to keep up with. _I'm_ the only one quick enough to keep up with him."

"Are you volunteering to live with him instead?" John asked, raising a brow playfully.

"Yes!" Then he paused. "No! Fuck, dude, I don't know!"

A familiar voice sliced the air. "Hey, morons! Get the fuck back down here and stop whispering into each other's ears like a pair of gossiping fairies!"

John looked back down to see Karkat sneering up at them. "Oops! Looks like we'd better get back down there before Karkat bites our heads off, huh?"

"Wait, we didn't decide—!"

But John was already on the ground, telling Karkat cheerfully, "Looks like I'll be the one living with you, if you don't mind!"

"Like hell you'll be living with me! I don't need a babysitter!"

Dave landed with a thud, looking less than pleased. He clearly wanted to be the one to look after Karkat, but _something_ —most likely his irrational fear that he would end up utterly obliterating anyone he tried to get close to romantically—was holding him back. "Shut that hole in your nubby-horned head, Vantas. You can't take care of yourself right now and you know it."

Karkat's head whipped around to face him. "But Strider—!"

"No buts, Karkles. John will move in with you for the time being, and hopefully that will help you sleep a little easier. Understood?"

Karkat glared, reddish eyes piercing everything in his path. But then he looked to John, taking in the human's hopeful expression, and he caved in a heartbeat. "Fine. Fucking _fine._ But you stay in your own room and leave me alone unless I'm attacked!"

John couldn't hide the grin that blossomed across his face. Good, this was _good._ He could look after Karkat, make sure he was eating and sleeping and not freaking out too badly over his nightmares, and maybe living in close quarters with the troll would make Dave jealous enough to snap and admit that he still cared about him. "You got it, Karkat!"

Rose gave a satisfied nod. "So it's settled, then. John, make sure you're thorough in your duties."

In other words, _make sure you're watching him as often as possible, and that you always know where he is. If there's another murder, he_ has _to have an alibi. If he doesn't…_

"Will do," John said with a smile. "Now, Karkat, let's—"

"Not so fast," Dave interrupted. "John, you'll need to pack your bags if you really want to stay with this loser, so go take care of it. Rose, Kanaya—thanks for your support and all, but you guys should get out of here." He turned, shades pointed at Karkat. "You're with me. We need to talk."

The troll looked surprised, but offered only a low, irritated grumble of agreement. "Fine."

Rose threaded her arm through Kanaya's, agreeing, "If that's what you want. We'll keep you updated," before slipping back through the center of town and vanishing into the throng of curious prospitarians and dersites.

John shrugged. He saw no reason to protest, not if Dave and Karkat were going to start working out the mess between them. "Hey, not a problem for me! Karkat, I'll see you back at your place." Then he too was gone, darting up into the sky and leaving behind the two figures of his closest friends.

†††

Dave stared after John as he flew away, waiting until he was well out of sight before turning to Karkat and murmuring, "Come on. We can't talk here."

Karkat didn't answer. He just shrugged, albeit irritably, and followed as Dave led him out of the center of town and back towards the hive he would soon be sharing with John.

"Now," Dave went on, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the townspeople weren't within earshot. "Do you want to tell me just why you attacked my brother? Or… _kind of_ brother?"

The troll glared at the ground. "He was accusing me of fucking _murdering_ someone. What was I supposed to do, stand there?"

"You've never behaved so violently before. Not physically."

"You haven't known me for that long, Strider, so don't go around pretending you know how I normally act!"

"We spent three years together, dude, so don't tell me I don't fucking know how you act! You're a lot of things, but you're not one to just randomly attack people you're mad at. You're more likely to scream at people than try to kill them, and quite frankly, it concerns me that you swung at _me_ on a whim before attacking Dirk." His chest was heaving by the time he was done, because _fuck,_ the thought that Karkat was losing it was _terrifying._ If he'd swung at Dave without thinking, and attacked Dirk without a second thought, then…

 _Is it really so outlandish to think that he could have heard that prospitarian behind him and just…swung without thinking?_

Karkat was watching him. He was watching as the thoughts cycled through Dave's mind, and it must have shown on his face because the troll was suddenly reeling back, features twisting unpleasantly. "You…you _suspect_ me! You think I could have done this!"

"You _swung_ at me, Karkat, who's to say you didn't do the same to that prospitarian?" He hated himself for saying it, but it was the truth.

"Is that why you didn't want to live with me?" Karkat bit out. "Because you think you'll be next? Are you offering John to me as some sort of sick _sacrifice?"_

"What? No! I can't live with you because—" He cut himself off with a snap, clamping his teeth down on his tongue.

The troll didn't seem to want to drop the subject. "Is it _for my own good,_ Strider? Because that's what you told your fuckhead of a brother, and I'm not sure what to fucking make of it!"

Oh _shit,_ he'd forgotten he'd said that in front of Karkat. "It's nothing, dude, don't worry about it."

"Are you sure it's nothing? Because it sounds like you're doing this out of some ridiculous desire to _protect_ me—which is fucking absurd!"

"That's not true." It was very true.

"I swear, you humans and your ridiculous single-quadrant romantic endeavors make me sick!"

"Dude, come on."

Karkat threw his hands up in the air. "You know what? If you're done trampling all over the deep feelings of pity that I may or may not have possessed for you, you can just leave me the hell alone. Either reciprocate or reject, Dave, none of this weird middle ground shit!"

He jolted, Karkat's words cutting to his very core. He _couldn't._ He _couldn't_ reciprocate, even if Karkat still had those 'pitying feelings' he kept going on about. He couldn't because if he did then he would just weigh the guy down with all of his emotional baggage, and then both of them would get hurt and hate each other (and not in a weird hate-love way) and never want to interact in any way ever again. "I…"

Karkat snorted. "That's what I thought. You're fucking pathetic, and not in a romantic way."

Dave winced, but it was well hidden. "Look, just…just stay in your house and let John take care of you. How about that? I can stay away from you and you can start eating and sleeping better, and you can stop hearing voices and taking swings at random people."

He could have imagined it, but he thought that he saw Karkat's eyes flicker with hurt. "So that's fucking it, huh? You're just going to ditch me right after you started talking to me again?"

Dave swallowed back a scathing retort, saying instead, "For now, yeah. I'll probably pop back in the next time you start hearing things."

"Don't bother," he sneered. "I'm sure John can handle me."

It hit a little too close to home. Dave recoiled as if he'd been burned, features twisting as his fears were revived. John had told him so many times that he wasn't interested in Karkat in a boyfriend kind of way, but still…

"And for the record," the troll went on, "the nightmares didn't start happening until _after_ you left. I didn't start throwing up everything I tried to eat until _after_ you left. And I sure as hell didn't start _hearing_ things, _seeing_ things, until _after_ you left. So it seems like any attempt to protect me has been the _worst_ kind of failure."

Then he was gone, stomping away furiously. Dave knew that he could fly after him. He knew that he could catch him in a heartbeat, spin him around and yell and scream and make him understand why he couldn't try to make their mess of a relationship work, but…doing so would just make things worse. And so he just stared helplessly, knowing that he may have just pushed Karkat away for good, and cursed himself silently for being unable to act.

 _It's better this way,_ he reminded himself for the umpteenth time. _Better that he moves on from me and doesn't have to put up with any of my bullshit. Better that we stop having the same conversation over and over._

It was better this way. It _was_.

So why did he feel so awful?

†††

 _Stupid Dave, with his dumb, idiotic face…how dare he dump me like garbage then try to jump in and act he wants to protect me? That fuckass has wanted nothing to do with me this whole time, and suddenly he has the nerve to pretend he actually cares about me!_

Karkat stomped down the road towards his hive, thoughts buzzing around in his think pan with no sign of stopping. He couldn't _believe_ that guy. Dave was a complete asshole, he'd known that since the beginning—but stringing him along with hints of pity was by far the cruelest thing he'd done so far. And now, on top of Dave's wishy-washy behavior, Johnwas going to be moving in with him and intruding upon his solitude. What really bothered him about it wasn't the fact that the human was going to be there, but the fact that he _wasn't at all upset_ about him being there. In fact, he was actually looking _forward_ to having his hive feel a little less empty for a change, not that he would ever admit it to anyone.

"Hiya, Karkat!"

Speak of the devil.

John flew out of the top window of Karkat's hive as he approached the front door, swooping down and landing on the porch with a grin. "I threw my stuff into one of the spare rooms, hope you don't mind. Oh man, we're going to have so much fun now that I'm staying over here! I brought like, my _entire_ movie collection, and we're watching _every single one_."

"Spare me," Karkat groaned, but his blood pusher warmed.

"Aww come on, it'll be fun! You can put on some of your weird troll movies too!"

"How could I resist when you put it so tactfully?"

John smiled goofily, buck teeth worrying at his bottom lip. "Hey, Karkat…would you promise me something?"

He was immediately on guard. "What is it?"

"Just…will you promise to tell me if you decide to leave the house from here on out? And also promise to eat, and sleep, and just, uh…take care of yourself?"

Karkat opened his mouth to snap that he couldn't really control how much sleep he managed to get, and that his stomach had a mind of its own. But then he looked up at John and saw his hopeful expression, saw the way his eyes were shining behind his glasses, and all his protests melted to goo in the pit of his stomach. "Fuck," he breathed. Then, "Yeah, I can try."

John's entire face lit up. "Great! I'm, uh, not the best chef, and Rose and Kanaya are still working on how to alchemize full meals instead of just the ingredients…but I can try to make something! I looked in your fridge, and you just seem to have a whole bunch of that weird soda stuff."

Right…he'd almost forgotten about the copious amounts of faygo that had been stuffed into his refrigerator. He didn't drink it; Dave had packed it in as a prank. It was ironic, he thought, that they could manage to alchemize a shitty red soft drink but not recuperacoons, which were crucial for his species' comfort. _Shit, if we'd just figured out how to alchemize that garbage sooner then we might have been able to keep Gamzee doped up long enough to stop him from slaughtering all our friends._

John backed up to the door and swung it open. "Come on, show me where your alchemiter is and I can make some ingredients to work with."

Karkat nodded dumbly, following him into the house. Now that they were out of the game there wasn't really a way for them to pick up build grist, so they would only be able to use the alchemiters for so long—but they had billions of units of the stuff right now, so there wasn't much cause for concern. They would be able to use the machines for generations before running out, so long as they weren't reckless. Unfortunately, despite their surplus of grist, Rose and Kanaya, the most intelligent among them and the ones that had dedicated themselves to essentially becoming scientists, had been slow to figure out the captchalogue codes necessary to create a lot of the things that would make their life on their new planet more bearable. Good food, for example. No one had figured out how to alchemize full meals, only the ingredients that contributed to those meals. It was a little bit of a nightmare for anyone with questionable culinary skills.

"It's in there," Karkat muttered, pointing John in the direction of the door that split off at the back of the relaxation block. He'd kept the some of the odd design choices of his hive from back on Alternia (much to Dave's chagrin), meaning that it was full of rooms in odd places, the alchemizing block being one of the stranger ones.

"Really?" John asked. "You have a room just…in the back of your living room?"

"Are you going to make the ingredients or not?" Karkat snapped, stomping over and yanking the door open. "What are you planning on making, anyway?"

"Oh, um…" John hesitated, looking puzzled. "Uh…"

The troll huffed. "You're hopeless." He pushed past the human and down into the alchemizing block, approaching the machine and beginning to punch in codes.

"Oh! What are you doing?" John flew up behind him, peering invasively over his shoulder.

"Spaghetti," he decided, remembering how Dave had introduced him to the human dish during their short time sharing the hive. "You humans like that stuff, right?"

"You know how to make it?" John asked, ignoring his question. "Really? Who…?" Then he trailed off, no doubt putting two and two together, and his expression fell. "Um…sorry."

"Don't apologize, nookwhiff," Karkat ground out. "It's not your fault that Dave's decided to run right the fuck away from me."

The human fidgeted. "But, um…he really does care about you, I think! Or…pity you? Is that what you would want him to say? That he pities you?"

Karkat shrugged casually, but his blood pusher clenched. "I don't give a shit what he does or doesn't feel, it's obvious he's not interested anymore."

"And are _you_ interested?"

His head snapped up, and he shot the human a vicious glare. "That's none of your business!"

"Woah, woah! Okay, Karkat, I'm sorry I asked!"

He maintained his glare, but said nothing else as he finished alchemizing the ingredients he needed. A moment later a set of strange-looking vegetables appeared on the platform, followed by a package of spaghetti noodles (Dave had found a random package of the things in his house back when he was first launched into the game, and had submitted the code around the same time that everyone had been throwing in the codes for whatever food items they'd managed to procure along their journey). They didn't have much they could alchemize aside from the few random items everyone had had on them (a package of spaghetti noodles from Dave, a shit ton of cake mix from Jane, a bunch of weird candy from Dirk…those kinds of things) but when paired with the captchalogue codes derived from the fruits and vegetables naturally growing on their new world, they could make somewhat edible things.

"Hey, they're _purple!_ " John exclaimed, floating over to poke at the tomatoes Karkat had just alchemized. "Why are these tomatoes _purple?"_

"We're in a new world, dumbass," the troll snapped. "The rules have changed." He shoved John out of the way and snatched up the noodles and the tomatoes and the other assorted ingredients, leaving John behind as he made his way up to the meal block and dumped the things he needed down onto the counter.

There was a rush of wind, and then John was at his side once again. "I can help if you want! I mean…I never had much experience with anything other than baking, but I'm sure I can figure it out if you give me a little instruction!"

Karkat eyed him. "Think you can manage filling a pot with water and putting it on the combustion hull?"

"Combustion hull?" Then he snapped his fingers, exclaiming, "Oh! You mean the stove! Yeah, I can do that." He flew (geez, did this guy ever just _walk_ anywhere?) around the kitchen in a whirlwind, locating a pot and dumping it unceremoniously on the counter, already reaching to pour the dry noodles into it and crank up the heat.

"You have to fill it with water first, fuckass!" Karkat snapped over his shoulder, not seeing but _sensing_ that John was about to fuck up colossally.

"Oh!" He blushed. "Sorry…"

A smile hooked the corners of his mouth, though he didn't let John see. "Don't worry about it, dumbass. Just fill the damn pot with water and put it on the stove."

He obeyed with a flourish.

†††

"Karkat, go to bed."

"No."

"Karkat, _go to bed."_

"No."

"Karkat, bed!"

"No, fuck you."

John pouted, lips pursing, face developing little creases around the eyes. "But Karkaaaaaaaat!"

"Oh gog, I could _hear_ the eight a's you just used."

John giggled. Fucking _giggled,_ like a grub babbling excitedly at its lusus.

"Leave me alone," Karkat snapped. He was glaring at John from the doorway of his respiteblock, the door just barely cracked to let those startlingly blue eyes shine through. He'd been lounging in his room peacefully for hours, John hanging out downstairs and blaring some ridiculous movie, but it seemed that the human had finally decided to make him follow through on his promise to sleep.

"Sleep, Karkat!"

"What if I _was_ sleeping, and you just woke me up?"

"You've been fidgeting around in there for hours! You're so loud; I can hear you over the movie!"

He groaned. So, that lie had gone straight out the window. "Look, it's really not going to work. I really can't fucking sleep, whatever you may think."

John smushed his face into the crack between the door and the doorframe. "Sleep!"

"But I—!"

"You _promised!"_

He hissed. "You'll be the one being woken up in the middle of the night when I fall off the sleep slat screaming!"

"Then I'll come in and make sure you're okay, and everything will be fine. Now sleep!"

He growled, letting the familiar rumble start up low in his throat. But John didn't seem afraid, and he was reminded that humans didn't have the instincts that told trolls to _back the fuck off right now_ whenever another troll was growling at them.

"Karkat Vantas, don't make me come in there!"

"What are you, my lusus?"

"I don't think so, but I _do_ care about you, so you should at least _try_ to get some rest!"

"I'll just lay on the sleep slat until morning, then, but never actually close my eyes!"

"And then the bags under your eyes will be darker in the morning, and I'll know and make you pay for it!"

"And how do you intend to do that?"

"I'll, uh…" He trailed off.

"Right," Karkat snorted. "That's what I thought."

John was silent for a long moment, face still mashed right up against the door. Then he sighed and whined out, "Karkat, please?"

He winced. Sleeping would cause nightmares, and he didn't think he could take watching his friends be torn apart again. "No."

"Is it the nightmares? Is that what you're worried about?"

He grumbled, and it was as good as confirmation.

"Oh," John sighed, expression turning sympathetic. "Well, how about I come in and make sure to wake you up if you start having a nightmare?"

"That would involve you watching me sleep, which is absolutely _not_ in the cards."

"But Karkat—!"

 _"No,_ John."

Another moment of silence. Then there were a few fingers lodged in the gap between the door and the doorframe, and John was reaching towards him with as much of his hand as he could fit through. "Pretty please? I promise to wake you up right away! I don't have to watch you, I can just listen! If you start thrashing or making weird noises, I'll know I should wake you up."

He was actually considering it. Holy fuck, he was actually considering letting John hang around in his room just to get that pitiful look off his face.

"Kar?"

…And there was that nickname, and _whoops,_ there went the rest of his self control. "Fuck, John, just…" He choked, and had to take a moment to regain his composure. "Just…don't stare at me like a fucking creep while I'm trying to rest, okay?"

John pumped a fist in the air, exclaiming, "Yes!" Then he was pushing through the door to his respiteblock like he'd been waiting to do it his whole life, offering Karkat one of those goofy grins he was so famous for and plopping down in the computer chair. "Ooh, you have such a comfy chair! You'll have to give me the captchalogue code for it."

Karkat just stared. _John…_

The human blushed suddenly when the troll didn't answer, saying, "Oh, sorry—I should let you rest, right?" He shrank down into the chair. "You can, uh…get into bed? I'm going to watch some movies on my computer while you're out."

"Not too loud," Karkat grumbled, already shuffling towards the sleep slat. "And if you wake me up with your rancorous laughter, so help me gog I will tear your bulge off and shove it down your throat!"

That just made him giggle. "Okay, sure! Sleep well, Karkat."

He muttered out something indistinguishable in response, then flopped down on the sleep slat without changing into his pajamas. He normally just slept in his boxers, but he had a feeling it would make John uncomfortable if he just started stripping—and that wasn't even taking into account that if he took off his shirt in front of the guy, his gills would be on full display for anyone to ogle at.

He wiggled his fingers and toes, trying to release the tension from his body through little movements. It was useless, though. The day's events had left his muscles knotted and his think pan racing, and he knew that despite his exhaustion, sleep would be next to impossible.

But John…John was making tiny, shuffling movements as he decaptchalogued his husktop and stuck in a DVD he'd presumably brought up with him, and he was real and he was there and he was _right_ there _,_ just a few feet from him, and Karkat felt just a hint of the tension leak out of his chest when he saw the way the human was hunching over his dimly lit husktop screen, a dopey smile on his face.

 _John will wake me if I start having a nightmare. John is watching._

It wasn't very comforting—John was such a scatterbrain, it was entirely likely that he would just drift off like an idiot and not realize if Karkat was having a nightmare a mere three feet from his face. But it was at least _slightly_ comforting, and that…

That counted for something, he thought.


	6. Karkat: Dream

**Chapter 6: Karkat: Dream**

* * *

John's presence did nothing.

Karkat woke up screaming what could only have been a few hours later, throat raw, eyes burning, claws bloody from where they'd had a rather personal encounter with his sides, barely missing the delicate gill slits. He was off the sleep slat in a heartbeat, feet tangling around each other and sending him sprawling to the ground with a little cry of pain. His shirt was wet where he'd clawed at his sides subconsciously, and he could feel hot liquid dripping down to soak his waistband, turning his clothing slick with the stuff. _Blood,_ his think pan supplied unhelpfully. _You're bleeding, fuckass._

The troll groaned low in his throat, fingers twisting into the carpet as he tried to gather the strength to push himself up and get to the ablution block, where he kept medical supplies on hand for this very purpose. He hadn't clawed into his gills, thank fuck, but the skin around them was _sensitive,_ and his entire torso screeched in protest as he attempted again to get himself up for a second time. But his arms were shaking from the force of the nightmare, and his lungs weren't managing to take in enough air to keep his vision from blotching, and _gog fucking damn it,_ wasn't John here for this very purpose? Where the ever-loving _fuck_ was he?

His question was answered as frantic footsteps suddenly sounded in the hallway, and then the human in question was throwing the door open and standing there like an antlerbeast caught in the headlights as he took in the sight before him.

It took an awkward few seconds for him to react.

"Oh _god_ , Karkat, what _happened?"_

John's hands were on him, then, helping him sit up and lean against the side of the sleep slat. He hissed as the slices on his sides pressed against the firm material—his shirt was black, so John couldn't see the blood and tell that he'd been injured. His bloodied claws were the only indication. And maybe it was better that he _didn't_ know that he'd been hurt, because then John would want to get at his wounds which were _right next to his gills,_ which were _secret,_ and then the last one of his fucked up mutations would be right out in the open for all to see. _Maybe John won't notice,_ he thought, wincing as even the slightest rippling of muscle sent tremors through the eight sealed off windows to his soul.

John didn't seem willing to cooperate with his hopes, though. "You—your hands are covered in blood! Did you cut yourself?"

 _There goes that, I guess._ "I'm fucking fine," the troll managed to hiss, fighting a groan as pain pulsed through him. He took a moment to laugh at the fact that if this had happened to him on Alternia, he would have been culled by the first troll that saw him. "Perfectly fine, nothing to see here!"

John just stared, expression pained. "Come on, Karkat, you can trust me!"

He _knew_ he could. That was the thing. He knew that if he really wanted to, he could tell everyone about his gills and there wouldn't be anyone left to judge him. But it was just _secret,_ a hidden part of his anatomy that no one had ever gotten close to, and that he'd kept in disuse for so long that they were practically sealed tight to his body. It was such an ingrained part of him to flinch away whenever someone got close to discovering his mutations that he could never convince himself to _trust_ anyone.

"Karkat," John pressed softly. "Please. I want to help you!"

He hesitated. John…he was an entirely different beast, wasn't he? He wasn't teasing him or anything, just sitting there and staring at him through earnest eyes. He wasn't trying to poke fun at his insecurities. He was just _there._

If he was going to show anyone…

"Please," John repeated, and then Karkat's decision was made for him as he doubled over in agony. Even if John left him alone, he wouldn't be able to help himself out of this.

"Oh no!" John exclaimed, reaching out to steady him. Then he yelped in surprise, fingers coming away red. He'd tried to grab Karkat's side. "Your sides?"

 _Guess I have no other option. Maybe there'll be so much blood that he won't notice._ "Sides," he confirmed in a bitter murmur.

John sucked in a breath. "Do you have medical supplies? Can you, um…maybe get your shirt off?"

He hesitated. But there was no backing out, not now that John had discovered the location of his injuries, and so he let out a hiss in the affirmative as he reached to the collar of his shirt and quite literally ripped it in two with his claws. The tattered material fell away (he had more of them, it was okay) and settled on the ground in uneven chunks of cloth. He twisted slightly in discomfort. Any minute now John would notice that he was a mutant, even more so than he'd thought, and then…

"Okay," John said, settling his hands on the troll's shoulders and tilting him to one side, pressing the fingertips of one hand to the place where the slashes began. His eyes went wide, and Karkat _knew_ it was coming. But all John said was, "Karkat, your sides! You really tore into yourself; you're so marked up!"

He blinked, stunned. Had John just…not noticed? Were his gills so completely covered in blood that he couldn't tell? They _were_ pressed closed at the moment, with no hints of water to open them up. Was it possible…?

"You must have clawed at yourself more than once," John continued. "There are like ten slashes on each side!"

All at once, his blood pusher dropped into his shoes in disappointment and lurched towards the skies in relief. John thought his gills were just more cuts in his sides. He supposed that it was logical, seeing as they were covered in blood along with the _real_ slashes. His pan spun with conflicted absolution.

"Oh man, you're bleeding a lot!" John exclaimed. "Where are your medical supplies and stuff?"

"Ablution block," was the clipped response. John vanished the instant he heard it, and Karkat was left curled in on himself on the floor of his respiteblock. _Shit…I've really done it this time._ A tremor ran through him, fear of having his gills exposed dashed momentarily as he recalled his dream—Nepeta lunging for him, those wicked claws extended to slash through his throat, to grab him by the hair and hold him in place as blood fountained from his wounds and his vision started fading in and out sickeningly.

John returned with a roll of bandages, a wad of cotton, and a bottle of that weird alcohol that humans used to cleanse wounds. Karkat winced at even the _thought_ of that stuff going on the sensitive gill slits. "Hold still, Karkat, I've got to stop the bleeding."

"Not bleeding that much," he muttered, instinctively curling in on himself further in an attempt to get those fingers _away_ from him. "Had worse."

"I don't care, you're hurt and need attention!" John eased him onto his back, right out across the carpet of his respiteblock. There would be horrendous stains later. John tugged at his shoulders that exact moment, though, twisting his wounds in a horridly painful fashion, and suddenly the carpet was the absolute _last_ thing he was worried about. "Come on, help me out here!"

Karkat had to bite back a snarl as John prodded at him, slowly helping him to turn on his side enough to reveal the first set of gashes. _He's trying to help you, fuckass,_ he had to remind himself. _Don't bite his head off. He's not a troll; he doesn't have the instinct to kill his friends when they're weak._

"I'm going to disinfect them," John told him with a grim look. He was holding that bottle of rubbing alcohol in his hand, a rag in the other. "Hang on, this is probably going to sting a bit."

John lifted the bottle, and it was then that Karkat realized that he may have just made the worst mistake of his entire life. He was about to lurch up, struggle, say _something—_ but before he could so much as yelp, he was being forced into the ground by a steady stream of liquid that seared across his gill slits and brought tears to his eyes. He had to snap his teeth into his tongue to stop from screaming. His gills could sense the liquid being poured over them, and only his quick reflexes kept them from opening like idiotsand trying to _breathe_ that shit. _No,_ he told them furiously, _that is not water! Not for you!_

"There we go," John soothed, oblivious to Karkat's pain, using the cloth to dab the alcohol off of his skin. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

It was fucking _agonizing._ "N-no," he managed to gasp out, "not that bad. But could you maybe use the fucking _cloth_ next time instead of pouring that shit _right onto my side?_

John blinked. "Oh, but wouldn't that take longer…? And maybe be less thorough?"

"Just _do_ it, you idiot!"

"Okay, okay!" John yelped, raising his hands in surrender. "Come on, let's get you on your other side so we can get those slashes bandaged up before you start bleeding too much again."

John didn't even look at him strange as he helped to roll him over. He didn't glance twice at his cleaned side. He hadn't noticed the gills. He just thought they were cuts, even now. _Gog, he's such an idiot._

"Other side now," John announced, pouring a healthy amount of the stinging liquid onto the rag and taking it to Karkat's other side.

This one was better. Less agonizing and more simply _painful._ The burning cloth cleaned off all the blood and left his skin clean (and John _still_ didn't notice anything, the well-intentioned goofball), and it wasn't long before John was leaning back with a satisfied grin.

"Bandages next!" he announced. "Hold still, okay?"

Karkat just grumbled noncommittally as John plucked a heap of gauze from the medical supplies. He only groaned slightly as the human propped him up against the side of his sleep slat and pressed a bit of gauze to either side, performing an incredible feat of dexterity in somehow managing to hold the material in place _and_ get the bandages to wind around his chest. He suspected that windy powers were involved at more than one point.

John finally drew back. "Okay, we're all done! Feel better?"

Well, one side burned like hell and the other ached miserably, but he couldn't exactly complain after John had gone through all that trouble, and after he'd failed to notice that he had _gills_. It was almost enough to make him believe in one of Gamzee's miracles. "I'm fine," he managed. "Thanks. It…would have been harder without you here." Actually, it probably would have been _impossible_ without him there, but he wasn't going to admit it.

John watched him, expression stricken with the deepest forms of horror and worry. "Are you speaking from experience?"

"Fuck no!" he snapped, the deep, throbbing pain in his sides only making more irritable. "This is the first time that's happened!"

"Was it on purpose?"

"What? No. _Fuck_ no. Do you really think I'd take my own claws to my sides, _consciously_ knowing that I was doing it?" _My fucking gills would be shredded—and as much as I'd love to be rid of them, just scratching them_ lightly _is agonizing! They're fucking sensitive, gogdamnit!_

The human threw up his hands. He was completely unaware of what was boiling beneath Karkat's skin. "I have no clue what you'd do, Karkat!" he protested. "I haven't exactly been around you before while you're like this!"

 _Like this? Like what?_

Oh…Karkat nearly laughed as he realized what he meant. Like _this. Vulnerable._ Just the way the word felt in his think pan made him curl in on himself, closing himself off from John's gaze even as the bandages crunched painfully against his inflamed wounds. He wasn't _supposed_ to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable meant being _dead_ on Alternia.

"This isn't your weird troll planet," John said, as if plucking the thoughts straight from his head. "This is _our_ world now, and if you have to sob on the floor of your room to recover from a nightmare, then there's nothing stopping you but you."

Sobbing? He was _not—_

Well…maybe his eyes were burning a little. But that was all!

John sighed, no doubt seeing how guarded he'd become. "Look, do…do you want to talk about it or something? What was your nightmare about?"

He glared at John, not quite sure if he should respond. He was still reeling from the entire experience, still in pain, still breathless. And besides, this was _moirail_ stuff, and John was _not—_

"I can help you," John offered softly, eyes glowing. "It makes me feel awful seeing you unable to sleep, Karkat."

Fuck. Yeah, okay—that was the palest look anyone had ever given him. But John was _not_ his moirail. John was just a nice guy, flying around and trying to solve everyone's problems, and Karkat just happened to be on his list of people to fix currently. John was nice to everyone the way Vriska was mean to everyone and Kanaya mediated everyone. It was just _him._ Right?

"Karkat?" John pressed.

He tried to say something, then coughed when the words became lodged in his throat. When he finally managed to speak his voice was thin and strained, and he immediately fought to regain his familiar snarl. "J-just the usual…being torn apart by my friends."

John's expression turned pitying in an instant—but it wasn't _romantic_ pity, because humans didn't _do_ that, and it drove him mad. "Oh, Karkat, that's awful! Was I one of the ones…?"

"No," he said quickly. "It's only the dead ones."

John blinked, clearly unsure of that was better or worse.

"It's worse," he informed him, fingertips subconsciously brushing across his bandages. "Worse than being killed by people that are still alive."

The pity intensified. "These are the nightmares that have been bothering you all this time?"

He nodded silently.

The human watched him for a long moment, then, fingers twitching as he wanted to do something, but wasn't sure what it should be. But then he shot to his feet with a snap of his fingers and said, "I know! I'll grab you a glass of water. Would that help?"

It was kind of a sad attempt, but at least it was an _attempt,_ and not Dave recoiling and deciding to go live in the northern part of town. "Yeah, sure. Knock yourself out."

John almost did just that, running out of the room so fast he nearly banged his head on the doorframe. _Idiot,_ Karkat thought with a smirk.

When John left, Karkat wasted no time in dragging himself up off the ground to sit on the edge of his sleep slat. He'd allowed himself to lay prone across the floor for far too long already, and regaining even a _scrap_ of his defensive capabilities would make him feel at least a little better. He sucked in a sharp breath. His gills hurt more than the slashes themselves. _Gog…why does John have to be so attentive? If he wouldn't look so eager to help all the time, maybe I could just yell at him and chase him off and be done with this whole mess._

But John _was_ attentive, _was_ helpful, and so there was no way Karkat could just try to get rid of him. Even if he'd wanted to, yelling didn't seem to be an option. Everything just felt dull and painful as he sat there, head hanging low, chin pressing to his chest. His think pan ached and his claws throbbed and his sides groaned in protest with every minute shift of his muscles, and _would_ _whoever was at the window stop shrieking their claws across the glass?_

Wait. What?

Karkat jerked his head up in alarm, gaze snapping to the window on the right side of the room. His blood pusher shot into his stomach as he caught a dark blur at the window, claws coming up to rake across the flat surface once again.

What the _fuck_ was that?

For a moment he entertained the thought that there was a stray lusus creature at his window, scratching at the glass in an attempt to get in for whatever reason. But no, those were _definitely_ a troll's claws, and the figure was too small and too humanoid to be a beast. Briefly he thought it could be Kanaya, but she was still with Rose and had no reason to creepily drone at his window instead of knocking on the door like a civilized troll. So the question remained—what _was_ that thing?

The scraping continued. Something was _clawing at the latch,_ scrabbling with thick, clumsy fingers to undo it, hard enough to leave marks. Something was _out there._

Karkat was on his feet a moment later, shoulders squared towards the window, sides screaming in protest. Despite the pain, both sickles were held in a defensive position without him ever having consciously withdrawn them. He was hurting, but he wasn't going to be _helpless_ if that thing got in.

 _Oh gog,_ he thought, watching with short, terrified bursts of breath as the figure clawed at the window again. _Please don't come in here. I can't fend you off, not like this!_

The figure was still scratching. And then the other arm lifted, came into sight, and Karkat's breath caught in his throat as he saw a club-like shape looming at the window.

 _No way…it's not real, it's not real, there's no way it's real! It's…_

The club scraped at the glass, the blunt weapon clacking off the material with a hollow clank.

 _Oh fuck, it's real, how could it be fake if I can hear the noise so clearly? Fuck, fuck…it's going to get in!_

The claws were back. Fumbling with the latch. Clawing at the edges of the window.

 _It's going to get in._

Karkat shrank back, knuckles white around the grips of his sickles. The thing was going to get in. It was going to get in, and he was going to have to fight with torn sides, with aching gills. He was going to have to fight _now_.

Claws hooked up under the window.

 _I'll swing. Right…about…_

Something clicked, and Karkat nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Okay, I got the water! I really hope this helps, because—" John's voice broke off in a gasp. "Karkat!" Then there were hands sealing around his wrists, and the sickles were clattering to the ground as the human's thumbs dug into his wrists and forced him to release them. "What on earth are you _doing?"_

The troll jerked away from John, instinctively placing himself between the human and whatever was scratching at his window. "There's something at the window," he hissed, "I was just trying to defend myself!"

"The window?" John's eyes flickered over to it. He floated over and unlatched it, throwing the thing open without hesitation.

"No!" Karkat tried to protest, taking a step forward in preparation to launch himself at the throat of whoever had been banging at the window, injuries be damned. But John just frowned, shooting him a confused look instead of being viciously assaulted like he'd expected.

"Karkat, there's no one out here."

"But I heard him! He was scratching at the window, and I _know_ it was some kind of troll!"

"Scratching again?" John asked. He slipped fully outside and half-closed the window, running his fingertips across the glass, then the wood surrounding it. "But there are no marks here."

His breath caught in his throat. _No…fuck, is this really happening to me again? Did I just imagine that whole thing?_

John's expression softened as he no doubt noticed just how devastated the troll was to learn that he'd imagined it all _again_. "Oh, Karkat…" He reentered the room and latched the window behind him.

"I heard it," the troll tried helplessly. "I saw a figure in the window…a club…"

John's arms closed around his torso, and Karkat realized that the human was _hugging_ him. Hugging him like a fucking _lusus_ consoling a grub. "It's okay," John whispered. "You're going to start getting more sleep, and you're going to stop having nightmares, and once you're well-rested and fed those visions are going to fade away. You're going to be okay, Karkat."

His chest felt hollow. "I don't understand why I keep seeing things." It was said flatly, without any of his usual anger. "Why am I seeing things? Hearing things?"

"You just need to rest for a while," John said. "It's still the middle of the night, you should try to go back to sleep."

"No fucking way," the troll growled. Just the thought of closing his eyes again was making him sick to his stomach, and he didn't even think he _could_ sleep through the pain. "I've gotten enough sleep to last a few more days, now why don't you just—"

"A few _days?_ Karkat, how long have you been living like this?"

"Since Dave left." He'd thought that it would have been obvious.

"Well it's no wonder you're hallucinating, then!"

 _Hallucinating._ It was an ugly word.

"You can't start to get better until you sleep, so back to bed with you! I'm going to talk to Rose in the morning and see how easy it would be to drum up some kind of sleeping pill."

"Will that do what I think it will?" Karkat murmured, unresisting to John's attempts to nudge him back towards the sleep slat.

"It'll help you sleep, yeah." John pushed him down on the sleep slat, already moving to pull the covers up to his chin. "But until then, I'll stay with you."

He snorted. "That's what you said last time, but you were gone when I woke up."

"I had to go to the bathroom!" John whined. "I promise I didn't just ditch you! Come on, I can even sit on the bed if it makes you feel better!"

"…And then you'll fall asleep, and we'll wake up all tangled together like a shitty human romcom. _Not happening."_

The human pursed his lips in a pout. "Aww, okay. I'll just hang out in the computer chair until you fall asleep, then."

A part of Karkat almost acted without thinking, almost offered to let John share the sleep slat because what kind of a friend would he be if he just let the human doze off in a chair? But then he realized what he was about to suggest and what would inevitably end up happening (namely a completely nonconsensual cuddle session), and he decided that a few hours of relative discomfort wouldn't kill the guy if it spared Karkat from impending embarrassment. And so he just nodded at John curtly, resigning him to the computer chair, and turned onto his side so that his face was to the wall.

It took a lot longer to fall asleep the second time, through the dull burn at his sides and the buzz in his think pan.

†††

"I just don't know how to explain it," Rose said, gesturing down at the body of the prospitarian. She'd been laid out across one of the tables in the lab as Rose examined her, and she was nearly unrecognizable in the way she'd been cleansed of all blood in order to better see the wounds.

"What's so hard to explain about it?" Dave questioned. He'd launched out of bed early that morning, driven by a mixture of jealousy at John's current living situation and irritation at Dirk's baseless accusations, hoping to find the answers to his questions—but all he'd found was Rose telling him that she couldn't tell him _anything_ , and it was infuriating. "It _wasn't_ Karkat, so why can't you prove it?"

"I can't prove it was _anyone,"_ Rose explained. "The wounds are—"

"Find a way to prove who it was," Dave snapped immediately, not waiting to hear the rest. He didn't care what it took, he was going to prove that the shouty little troll hadn't done this. "Fuck, Rose, this is serious!"

Kanaya appeared out of nowhere, nearly startling the blonde out of his wits. "I would ask that you do not take that tone with her. We worked tirelessly through the night in an attempt to glean the identity of the attacker, and snapping at us will not change the fact that there is no evidence of the identity of the person—or creature—that did this."

Dave fought the temptation to snarl, forcing himself back into his usual poker face. Getting emotional wasn't going to help. He _knew_ that. "Well, what _can_ you tell me?"

"Not much," Rose lamented. She moved to the body, reaching out a gloved hand to hover over the two slash marks across the throat. "The slashes are completely identical, suggesting that they were made with two identical apparatuses—but we already knew that. I've been able to pick up no evidence from the inside of the cut, the clothing, or the surrounding earth that would give us a lead. The prospitarian's neck was obviously broken, as John stated, but nothing about the way it was done suggests any one person or entity. The same can be said for the litany of small scratches covering the body." She held up her hands helplessly. "I'm sorry, Dave, but there's really nothing more to say. We can't tell who did this; we can't even tell what _species_ was involved."

"So Dirk is just going to keep suspecting Karkat, is that it?"

"It is, unfortunately. There's nothing we can do—unless you wish to visit him personally and try to straighten this mess out."

"Visit him…" Dave hesitated, seriously considering it. He'd been on bad terms with the guy ever since the whole mess with Karkat started all those months ago, and he didn't see that changing now.

"Or," Rose went on, "you could turn your anger into something constructive and go try to work things out with John and Karkat."

"What? Oh no, I am perfectly okay with whatever kind of weird relationship is developing there. I'm so cool, you could slap a few cuts of meat onto my stomach and they would be perfectly preserved for days."

Rose's nose wrinkled. "Repulsive comparisons aside, it seems obvious that you're jealous. What confuses me is the fact that you _chose_ to let John live with him, when you know he gladly would have given his position to you if you'd been more decisive about it. You let John go, and now you're sitting there fuming over something that you allowed to happen."

"I didn't come here to be psychoanalyzed," Dave muttered. "And I'm not jealous. Striders don't feel jealousy."

"Well you _shouldn't_ be jealous," Kanaya said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I do not believe that the relationship between John and Karkat is that of a flushed variety, and therefore your claim upon him is not disputed."

"Humans don't do the whole quadrant thing," Dave reminded her with a snort. "I don't care which of the quadrants Karkat wants to shove him into, _any_ quadrant is based on the troll equivalent of love, and there's no way I can roll with a guy that's in love with someone else."

"That's really not how it works," Kanaya attempted. "Humans can feel platonic love, can they not? It is the same for trolls, with pity and hate distinguishing what kind of affection you feel. They are the two sides of love, speaking in human terms, and making the distinction between the concupiscent and conciliatory quadrants is crucial."

He stared. "What?"

"Did Karkat not explain?"

"I mean, kinda, but…"

Kanaya frowned. "You weren't paying attention."

"…Yeah, pretty much. Got the basics, but…"

The frown deepened. "Well, the concupiscent quadrants contain the fields of matespritship and kismesissitude. You would fall into the flushed quadrant with Karkat had you not broken off your relationship, while couples such as John and Terezi would fall into the black quadrant, assuming they finally acknowledged the budding kismesissitude between them. On the other hand, we have the conciliatory quadrants, which consist of moirallegiance and auspisticism. People in the conciliatory quadrants don't experience mating fondness, and if anything, John and Karkat would most likely fall more into the—"

"Kanaya," Rose interrupted gently, "perhaps this discussion can wait?"

The troll blinked, surprised. But then she gave a graceful nod, saying, "Forgive me. I began to ramble again, it seems."

"No, wait—what quadrant do you think Karkat is trying to drag John into?"

That earned him a puzzled look. "Quite frankly, I do not believe that Karkat is doing the dragging."

"That's _enough,"_ Rose insisted. "Dave, if you're really so concerned with the type of relationship developing between your best friend and your _former_ matesprit, then you should go speak with them yourself. It will be good for you to work through your emotions out rather than bottling them up."

He didn't bother clarifying for the hundredth time that Karkat hadn't really been his matesprit—er, _boyfriend._ "But if you already _know_ , then—"

"This is something that will be healthier for you to figure out on your own," Rose said firmly.

Dave looked to Kanaya for help. But she just nodded, though it was clear she wasn't entirely certain why Rose was withholding information. "Jesus, Rose, you're really going to make me have an awkward conversation with those guys over this?"

"I'm sure someone as cool as you can handle it."

He ran a frazzled hand through his hair. "Yeah…yeah, I can handle it."

He couldn't handle it.

"Rose!" a voice called suddenly, and that didn't help the sinking feeling in his stomach at _all_. "Hey, Rose, are you in there?"

"It appears we have a visitor," Rose said blandly. "How convenient."

As if on cue, one John Egbert poked his head into the lab. "Oh!" he exclaimed, seeing Dave already standing there. "Am I interrupting something? I can come back if you want!"

"Oh no," Rose said with one of those scheming smirks she was so known for. "This is perfect. Dave, do you—?"

"Great!" John blew right through Rose's words, clearly quite agitated about something. He was wringing his hands, and his usual expression of carefree joy was masked by a slight twinge of nervousness. "Um, I was wondering if you had time to talk to me for a moment?"

Rose's eye twitched, no doubt irritated that her little plan had been derailed. "Of course, John. Has something happened?"

"Oh, nothing serious!" He wrung his hands even harder. "Just, Karkat had a nightmare and ripped his sides open with his own claws, and I'm actually really worried about him? And, uh…I was hoping that maybe you could figure out how to alchemize something that will help him sleep."

Dave felt his heart drop all the way to his toes. "What?" he rasped. "He clawed up his own sides? Fuck, is he okay?"

"Well, he had some kind of hallucination right afterwards, but I managed to snap him out of it. And then he slept really fitfully…kept waking up every few hours either crying or screaming."

And there went his heart, plunging straight through the floor and into the fiery pits of the abyss. His heart was playing poker with Satan in his own personal hell, and it was dead set on staying right where it was.

"Oh dear," Rose murmured, and even _she_ looked slightly rattled. "That does sound quite serious."

"Yeah, he's not in good shape…so do you think you can alchemize something to help him? Like, a sleeping pill or something?"

Rose shook her head regretfully. "I'm sorry, John, but it really isn't that simple. We've spent _months_ trying to figure out the codes for simple things like plates and napkins _,_ and we've barely managed that. And you're not asking for something simple, you're asking for medicine that could quite possibly _kill_ whoever ingests it if we make one minute mistake in the code. It's a bad idea no matter how you look at it."

"Then…are you any closer to cracking the code for those recuperacoon things? And the slime that goes with them?"

"I'm sorry, but no," Rose said. "We had to stop working on the codes in order to examine the body of the deceased prospitarian. And even so, we were nowhere near ready to actually alchemize one. The codes are proving to be quite evasive."

John's fidgeting worsened tenfold. "There's really nothing you can do?"

"I'm afraid not." Rose looked genuinely regretful.

"But…" His fingers were starting to turn purple from the lack of blood flow. "Rose, I'm really worried about him! He can't sleep and he's not eating much, and I've only been staying with him for one day but I can already see how messed up he is on the inside. He needs help!"

"Then you will have to provide that help," was the gentle response. "Karkat trusts you, John—it's up to you to make sure he's safe while we figure out how to alchemize what he _needs_ in order to begin the recovery process."

 _Karkat trusts you, John._ Dave felt a bitter taste rising in his throat, flooding into his mouth and covering his tongue in a nasty film. He wanted Karkat to trust _him_ , too. He wanted Karkat to need _him_ , too.

Then he stopped. What the hell was wrong with him? Karkat was suffering, and here he was _whining_ over the fact that John was providing him at least a modicum of comfort. _God, I really am pathetic. Fucking awful._

John seemed calmer, at least. He'd stopped wringing his hands, and was now just clenching and unclenching his fingers rhythmically. "Okay, yeah…yeah, I can try. But Rose, hurrying up would be great. The longer Karkat goes without sleeping properly the worse this is going to get, and I'm worried that soon he'll be in over his head and I won't be able to help him and—!"

"John," Rose hushed. "Please calm down. Everything is going to be fine. When you leave this place, you will go back to Karkat and take care of him, and you will realize that although things seem bad now, you are perfectly capable of handling this."

The human drew in a deep, hitching breath. "Yeah, but what if—"

Dave cleared his throat. "Rose is right, dude. You can handle it. And if…you know…if you can't handle certain aspects of this train wreck, then you could always let me help you out."

Rose raised a brow at the very obvious plea, but John didn't seem to hear anything else than a genuine offer to help.

"Thanks! You're a real pal, Dave!"

 _A real pal wouldn't be jealous over this._ "You know it."

John grinned, and it was bright with just a slight tinge of worry.

 _I wish I could be the friend you deserve, John. And god, I wish I could be the boyfriend Karkat deserves._

†††

Karkat knew he didn't have a lot of time. John had just left the house to go see Rose, which meant that he would be gone for thirty minutes tops. If he wanted to perform his little investigation, he would have to be quick.

He was up and out of the house the moment he knew John was too far away to see him leave, sides aching far less than they had the previous night. The human had warned him not to go out, had said it was too dangerous so long as his think pan was projecting figments and making him hear things.

But he had to see for himself.

Karkat made his way to the space outside his bedroom, where that _thing_ from the previous night would have been standing if it had really been there. John kept saying that he was seeing things that weren't there, that he was _hallucinating._ But _surely_ there was something there, _surely_ it wasn't just his think pan playing tricks on him. No hallucination could sound so _real_.

His eyes raked the ground where the creature would have been standing. But there was nothing—no footprints, no disturbed earth, no signs that anyone had ever been there. No scratch marks on the outer walls of his house. And when he reached up to run his fingertips over the glass, there was no sign that anyone had ever been scraping their claws over it.

Nothing. Fucking _nothing._

He really was going crazy, wasn't he?

…And there was something rustling in the bushes behind him, too. Fuck.

 _You know what?_ he thought, glaring at where the sounds were originating. _Fuck this. Fuck this whole situation right up the waste chute with a rusty knife. I'm not going to cower away from noises!_ He started for the source of the sounds, frustration at his crappy situation finally outweighing his fear of the strange things he'd been experiencing lately. _If these things are hallucinations, then they shouldn't be able to hurt me!_

The rustling grew louder the closer he came to it. He questioned momentarily how a hallucination could be affecting his physical environment—but then he decided that he was simply imagining the movement and the sounds, and he grabbed a handful of the branches and shoved them to the side triumphantly.

Then he froze, muscles locking up as he stared blankly.

"G-Gamz…?"

His eyes caught a flicker of indigo, and his blood pusher fell straight into his stomach. _It's a hallucination,_ he reminded himself, staring into the shadows where that set of indigo eyes was boring straight through him. _There's nothing there, he's not really there, I just need to show just a little bit of fucking courage and face this head on!_

He bared his teeth and took another step forward, ready to barrel straight into the shadows and prove that those eyes were a figment of his own think pan.

But then a low growl sounded, sharp and dangerous and full of impossible malice, and Karkat fell back onto his ass with a sharp gasp, sides spitting fire. _I know that sound…_

It came again, stronger than before, and then something in the shadows was creeping towards him—still far enough back so that Karkat couldn't quite make out what it was, but far enough forward so that he could see that it definitely _wasn't_ a lusus creature.

Karkat tried to get back to his feet. Hallucination or not, it was terrifying, and he wanted to be ready to fight. But again, the instant he started to move the growl pushed him right back down in sheer terror, and his stomach started to sink as he became more and more certain of what he was dealing with.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck! If I'm going to keep seeing things, the least my think pan could do is stop making the hallucinations produce those gogdamn highblood growls that knock us measly lowbloods flat on our asses!_

His think pan didn't seem to be listening, however, for the shadowy figment kept getting closer and the growls kept getting louder and Karkat was flat on his back unable to do so much as twitch. _Fucking troll biology! This is some real hoofbeastshit! Now if the hallucination would just run over here and molest my horns, that would complete the circle of fucked up biological submission reflexes, and we could all go back to our hives!_

The growl was growing in volume now, intensifying until Karkat was convinced that his head was about to split open. He couldn't see the thing's eyes, couldn't see much of anything other than the horrid brightness of the sky above, but his blood pusher felt like it was about to burst and his eyes were about to pop straight out of their sockets and even his fingers felt as if they were about to explode with the sheer pressure being placed over his entire body.

There was a swish of movement above him. The thing had leapt from the trees and darted past at breakneck speed, and he felt it brush across his front as it leapt over him on all fours like an animal. The instant it was gone he felt his entire body tense up as he slowly regained the ability to move. His think pan, which hadn't stopped racing throughout the entire experience, was running itself in circles.

 _It was a hallucination,_ he reminded himself. _Everything I saw here I've experienced before, so my think pan would have the material necessary to recreate it. Those were definitely Gamzee's eyes, and I've certainly seen them enough times to project them as a figment. And I've heard him growl, too, when he was…_ And here he paused, entire body thrumming with pain as he recalled the memories. _…When he was slaughtering us like animals back on that meteor. I definitely imagined it. It was fake. My body would have known how it was supposed to respond to that growl; the reaction wasn't real. It was fake. Pre-programed._

But still…it had felt so _real._ When the thing…when _Gamzee_ had leapt over him, he'd felt his clothing rustle, had felt his hair flick up into the air momentarily before falling back to his forehead, damp with sweat.

He sat up, muscles finally willing to support him. Then he just sat there, lungs working far too slowly as a result of being put under by a highblood's growl. His think pan was still spinning, and as he sat there on the ground, limbs falling limp at his sides, he realized that he was in over his head. If he was hallucinating so strongly that his think pan was somehow managing to invoke his own submission reflex, it was time to get help.

And he thought that he might just be desperate enough to do the thing he'd been avoiding since the beginning of this whole mess.

 **\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] started trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC] -**

 **CG: TEREZI** **  
** **CG: DON'T FUCKING LAUGH AT ME OR ANYTHING, BECAUSE I WILL PERSONALLY FIND A WAY TO FLY ALL THE WAY OUT TO WHERE THE VEIL USED TO BE, TRACK YOU DOWN, AND REMOVE YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS THROUGH YOUR NOSE IF YOU DO, BUT...** **  
** **CG: I NEED YOUR HELP.**


	7. Dave: Do Something You'll Regret

**God, it's so much easier to post on here than on AO3 when it comes to this story. Granted, I don't think anyone is really reading on this site because it looks better over on AO3, but still. I'll take what I can get.**

 **Chapter 7:** **Dave: Do Something You'll Regret**

* * *

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC] -

CG: TEREZI

CG: DON'T FUCKING LAUGH AT ME OR ANYTHING, BECAUSE I WILL PERSONALLY FIND A WAY TO FLY ALL THE WAY OUT TO WHERE THE VEIL USED TO BE, TRACK YOU DOWN, AND REMOVE YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS THROUGH YOUR NOSE IF YOU DO, BUT...

CG: I NEED YOUR HELP.

CG: BADLY.

GC: W3LL W3LL W3LL LOOK WH4T TH3 PURRB34ST DR4GG3D 1N!

GC: 1 N3V3R THOUGHT 1 WOULD S33 TH3 D4Y WH3N K4RK4T V4NT4S WOULD JUMP OFF H1S H1GH HORS3 4ND COM3 TO S33 L1TTL3 OLD M3 4BOUT H1S PROBL3MS

GC: 1M FL4TT3R3D :]

CG: LOOK I'M NOT IN THE FUCKING MOOD FOR YOUR HOOFBEASTSHIT, SO LET'S GET ON WITH THIS AND THEN WE CAN GO BACK TO NEVER SPEAKING AGAIN.

GC: GO ON TH3N

GC: COM3 CRY ON MY SHOULD3R

GC: WH4T S33MS TO B3 TH3 PROBL3M W1TH OUR PROUD 4ND V4LL14NT L34D3R?

CG: I SAW GAMZEE.

GC:...

GC: WH4T

CG: YEAH, I KNOW

CG: THESE FUCKING HALLUCINATIONS ARE DRIVING ME SHITHIVE MAGGOTS

CG: KANAYA TOLD YOU ABOUT THOSE, RIGHT?

CG: SOMEONE HAD TO, OTHERWISE THAT MEETING YOU STOOD IN ON WOULDN'T HAVE MADE ANY FUCKING SENSE.

GC: YOU M34N THOS3 V1S1ONS YOUV3 B33N H4V1NG?

CG: YEAH THOSE

CG: THEY'RE GETTING REALLY GOGDAMN INTENSE.

CG: AT FIRST IT WAS JUST WEIRD SOUNDS AND MOVING SHADOWS, BUT I'VE STARTED TO REALLY GO OUT OF MY PAN.

CG: I SAW GAMZEE JUST A FEW MINUTES AGO, AND IT WAS REALLY FUCKING TERRIFYING.

CG: THE BASTARD LOOKED ME RIGHT IN THE EYES

CG: AND I SWEAR TO GOG IF YOU REPEAT THIS TO ANYONE I WILL GO ALL THE WAY OUT THERE JUST TO FLAY YOU, BUT

CG: HE GROWLED AT ME

CG: AND IT WORKED.

GC: W41T 4R3 YOU B31NG S3R1OUS

GC: 1T WORK3D

GC: 4S 1N 4 F1GM3NT OF YOUR OWN TW1ST3D TH1NK P4N M4N4G3D TO 1NVOK3 YOUR SUBM1SS1ON R3FL3X

CG: DON'T FUCKING SAY IT LIKE THAT!

GC: 1 DONT KNOW HOW 3LS3 YOU W4NT M3 TO S4Y 1T

CG: I DON'T KNOW, JUST

CG: FUCK, I REALLY DON'T KNOW.

GC: TH1S 1S 4 PR3TTY S3R1OUS TH1NG YOUV3 JUST TOLD M3 YOU KNOW

GC: MO1R41L M4T3R14L :]

GC: DONT T3LL M3 YOUR3 D3V3LOP1NG 4 P4L3 CRUSH ON M3 K4RK4T

GC: B3C4US3 1M FL4TT3R3D BUT 1M R34LLY ONLY 1NTO VR1SK4

GC: WH3R3V3R SH3 1S

CG: OH JEGUS, THAT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT I WAS TRYING TO DO HERE

CG: I WOULDN'T WANT YOU AS A MOIRAIL IF WE WERE THE LAST TWO TROLLS ON THE PLANET AND I WAS ABOUT TO HAVE A PSYCHOTIC BREAKDOWN

GC: H3H3

GC: 1M FL4TT3R3D

CG: LOOK, I DECIDED TO TALK TO YOU BECAUSE I WAS UNDER THE UTTERLY FUCKING DELUSIONAL BELIEF THAT MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, YOU COULD HELP ME.

CG: BUT IF YOU'RE DETERMINED TO BE A WIGGLER ABOUT THIS, THEN BY ALL MEANS

CG: KEEP RUNNING IN CIRCLES SEARCHING FOR YOUR MOIRAIL AND I'LL JUST GO JUMP OFF A CLIFF OR SOMETHING.

GC: J3GUS TH4T W4S SUPPOS3D TO B3 4 JOK3

GC: C4LM YOUR L1TTL3 NUBBY HORNS 4ND T3LL M3 HOW 3X4CTLY YOUR3 3XP3CT1NG M3 TO H3LP  
CG: I DON'T KNOW

CG: YOU'RE THE ONLY OTHER TROLL ALIVE WHO'S NOT A CRAZY RAINBOW DRINKER, SO I THOUGHT THAT MAYBE YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND MY DEEP AND PUMP-BREAKING PAIN.

GC: GOG YOUR3 SO DR4M4T1C!

CG: I'M GOING TO PRETEND YOU DIDN'T SAY THAT.

CG: I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU, REALLY

CG: I WAS JUST HOPING THAT YOU COULD TELL ME HOW I'M SUPPOSED TO COPE WITH THESE SHITTY HALLUCINATIONS.

CG: YOU DON'T HAVE A RECUPERACOON TO SLEEP IN OUT THERE, RIGHT?

CG: HOW ARE YOU STILL SANE?

GC: W3 DONT R34LLY N33D TH3 R3CUP3R4COONS TO SURV1V3 YOU DUMB4SS

GC: TH3Y JUST M4K3 SL33P1NG 34S13R SO 1M NOT SUR3 WHY YOUR3 CL1MB1NG TH3 W4LLS R1GHT NOW

GC: WH4T DO3S TH3 COOLK1D S4Y 4BOUT 4LL TH1S

CG: OH RIGHT

CG: I FORGOT, YOU'VE BEEN GONE SO LONG THAT YOU DON'T KNOW.

CG: DAVE DITCHED ME A FEW WEEKS AFTER WE GOT TO THE NEW PLANET.

CG: RIGHT AFTER YOU LEFT, ACTUALLY.

GC: HMM

GC: OK4Y TH3N WH4T 4BOUT K4N4Y4

GC: SH3 S33M3D L1K3 SH3 W4S L34N1NG P4L3 FOR YOU

CG: SHE LEANS PALE FOR EVERYONE!

CG: AND BESIDES, I'M NOT ABOUT TO DUMP ALL OF MY PROBLEMS ONTO HER SHOULDERS WHILE SHE'S SO BUSY FIGURING OUT HOW TO ALCHEMIZE ALL THE SHIT WE NEED TO ACTUALLY LIVE ON THIS DUMPSTER FIRE OF A PLANET.

GC: OK4Y

GC: TH3N JOHN

CG: ...

CG: NO.

CG: HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IN THE QUADRANT SYSTEM, HE DOESN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT A MOIRAIL IS SUPPOSED TO BE.

CG: IF HE WANTED TO GO PALE WITH ME, THEN HE WOULD BE EXPECTED TO KISS ME AND DO ALL THAT CUDDLY SHIT, AND HE WOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT BE OKAY WITH THAT.

CG: HAVEN'T YOU HEARD?

CG: HE'S "NOT A HOMOSEXUAL."

CG: HE'S COMPLETELY HOPELESS, YOU SHOULD SEE THE LOOK ON HIS DUMB FACE WHENEVER HE THINKS SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH ME.

CG: COMPLETELY PATHETIC.

CG: FUCK, WAIT!

CG: THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!

GC: H3H3H3

GC: TH4TS QU1T3 TH3 PAL3 CRUSH YOU H4V3 TH3R3 K4RK4T

GC: 4ND 1 DONT KNOW 4BOUT TH3 WHOL3 "NOT B3L13V1NG 1N TH3 QU4DR4NT SYST3M" TH1NG

GC: H3 S33M3D PR3TTY C4L1G1NOUS FOR M3 B3FOR3 1 TOOK OFF

GC: 4ND YOU SHOULD H4V3 S33N SOM3 OF TH3 H4T3FUL TH1NGS H3S S3NT M3 L4T3 4T N1GHT ;]

CG: JEGUS YOU'RE DISGUSTING

CG: EVEN IF HE'S STARTING TO WARM UP TO THE QUADRANT THING, THAT DOESN'T MEAN HE'S GOING TO SNAP HIS FINGERS AND MAGICALLY TURN INTO A HOMOSEXUAL

CG: HE'S SO HARD HEADED, IT'S A MIRACLE HE EVEN MADE IT THIS FAR.

GC: W3LL 1 TH1NK M4YB3 YOU COULD CONV1NC3 H1M TO SW1NG FOR YOU

GC: YOUR3 OUR CH4RM1NG L34D3R SO WH4T COULD GO WRONG

CG: GREAT

CG: DO YOU SEE THIS? THIS RIGHT HERE?

CG: THIS IS WHY YOU'RE NOT MY MOIRAIL.

CG: FUCKING USELESS AT GIVING ADVICE.

GC: GOTT4 ST4Y F41THFUL TO VR1SK4 4ND 4LL TH4T NONS3NS3

GC: YOU KNOW HOW 1T 1S

GC: OH W41T

CG: FUCK. YOU.

GC: YOU W1SH

\- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

Fucking useless. He should have known better than to ask Terezi what he should have been asking his moirail.

†††

"So," Dave said, tailing John as he left Rose's lab. "How are things going with Karkat? Other than the whole clawing his sides open thing."

John shrugged, a hint of nervousness returning to his wide, innocent eyes. "Oh, I guess it's okay…I got him to eat a little bit last night before all those nightmares set in. But he's really messed up, and I think it's just going to get worse until he can get some decent sleep."

Dave swallowed hard. He was _so fucking worried_ about the little guy, but he didn't dare go to see him after the way their last conversation had ended.

"He could use a visit from you," John went on. "He has me, but I'm not the one he's doing the whole flushed thing with."

"Well it's not me either," Dave muttered. "And I don't think he'd want to see me right now. The past few times we've spoken, we've just had the same conversation in varying degrees of pissed-offedness."

"Seriously? That's ridiculous! You're dead set on believing that you're over him, and he's dead set in believing that he's over you, but we both know that you guys are completely insane! You're madly in love with each other, so just go work things out!"

Heh. Leave it to John to simplify everything to death. "I wouldn't call it _madly in love,_ dude. Never even kissed."

John whined, "So what? He could really benefit from you going to see him—and he could benefit even more from you pulling your head out of the ground and admitting the truth!"

He made it sound so simple, like it was something he could just go up to Karkat and say. Like, _hey there, I really am completely in love with you, but I had to ditch you because if I actually let myself be in a relationship with you then you'd have to deal with all of my emotional, family-abuse-related baggage that I'm not mature enough to talk about, and then you'd get dragged right to the bottom of the fucking ocean by my pile of shit. Want to get back together despite how fucked up I am?_

… _Could_ he just go up to Karkat and say that?

"You're being so selfish," John huffed.

"Wait—selfish? Dude, I'm doing this _for_ Karkat!" Then he flinched, remembering that he'd always insisted that he'd ditched Karkat because he didn't like him anymore, and that he was about to have to explain _everything_ to John. But to his surprise, John seemed to know exactly what he was referring to. Jeez, was he losing his edge so much that even an airhead like John could read him?

"You're not doing anything for Karkat. You're avoiding him because you're worried that you're going to get so close to him that he'll expect you to start doing that whole feelings jam thing, and you'll actually have to own up to all of the crap that you've never been able to deal with."

"Feelings jams are for moirails," he grumbled, because that was like the one thing he _did_ know about the quadrants, but John didn't seem to hear him.

"Well suck it up, Dave! Because you're going to have to face all your emotional stuff sooner or later and everyone around you is going to get hurt and that's just something you're going to have to accept! That's why we're here! We're _supposed_ to support you and help you get back on your feet!"

"Hey, man, you don't—"

"And if you think Karkat doesn't have his own share of trauma to throw on you, you're dead wrong! When you get into a flushed relationship you're supposed to support your other half and take their baggage onto your own shoulders—and they're supposed to be the same! No matter what kind of a relationship you get into, you risk hurting them, and you risk being hurt."

 _Flushed? Since when has John started thinking in terms of quadrants? Since when does he know so_ much _about quadrants?_

"Seriously, Dave, I don't know how else to say this to get it through your thick skull. Go see Karkat and work things out, or you'll have _me_ to answer to!"

"Woah, woah!" He raised his hands, startled at the downright vicious expression that had just flooded John's features. "Calm down, dude, I'll go see him! But if he gets mad and kicks me out, don't be upset with _me."_

Just like that the anger was gone, replaced by pure happiness. "Great! I think I'm going to run and visit Jade for a bit; why don't you run on ahead of me and talk to him without me there? I'm sure he'll feel more comfortable if I'm not hanging over him the whole time."

Going to visit Jade just so his friend could be alone with his _other_ friend, huh? Classic John.

"I'll see you later!" He was already taking off, drifting into the bright blue sky. "A little warning, though: Karkat's been a little unstable the past few days I've been with him, so don't sneak up on him!"

He'd figured that out for himself. _Unfortunately_.

"Oh, and don't forget—!"

There was a loud bang as the lab doors opened suddenly, and both boys jumped as Rose made a sudden reappearance in the doorway. "John, Dave!"

John was back on the ground immediately, Dave flash stepping back over to where Rose was standing. "Rose," he said, "did something happen?"

Her expression was grim. "The worst thing has happened."

Dave's stomach flipped. "What went down?"

"I just received a message from Roxy. She found the body of a male dersite sprawled in the forest outside her home."

 _Oh, shit. John, please tell me you left somebody with—_

"John, did you leave someone to watch Karkat?"

Just from the way his face paled, Dave knew that he hadn't. "No, uh…I was just going to be out for a few minutes, so…"

Rose scowled. "Then you should pray that he has some way of proving what he's been up to for the past half hour, because I don't trust Dirk not to take drastic measures if he can't."

"Maybe he's been messaging someone?" John suggested, stricken.

"We can only hope." Rose shot up into the air, saying, "John, you and I are going to see Roxy. Dave, I want you to go check on Karkat."

John immediately looked nervous. "Wait, I really think I should be the one to—"

"Dude, chill out," Dave insisted. "You already told me to go see him, so I can just head over there and check out what he's been up to. It'll be fine."

John still looked uncertain. But still he relented, saying, "Okay…just be careful with him."

Rose cleared her throat. "I'd hate to interrupt this touching moment, but we really do need to get going. I've told Roxy to keep quiet about this most recent murder with the exception of Callie, who was there as well, and none of us are to say anything about it to anyone. Karkat will need to be told, but that's it. For as long as we can, let's keep this quiet."

"You want to hide it from the others?" John asked.

"Not hide, really, not forever. But until we can prove that Karkat wasn't involved, or until we have no other choice, we shouldn't let anyone else hear about this. Think of what Dirk could do if we tell him someone was murdered _before_ we can prove Karkat's whereabouts at the time of death."

Dave and John shuddered simultaneously. No, that wouldn't be good.

"Now," Rose said, "we need to be off. John, let's go."

†††

John touched down outside the home Roxy shared with Callie a few minutes after taking off with Rose. Everything looked perfectly normal, he realized. It was a beautiful day, suns shining, white clouds lolling across the sky, a light breeze flowing. It was so normal, so bright, that he could hardly believe it when Roxy led them into the forest and straight to the body of the dersite.

The dersite had been murdered; that much was obvious. Just like the first murder, there was blood everywhere—but this one had been killed in a completely different way. Rather than the sharp, precise cuts that had been present on the prospitarian, _this_ body had been stabbed three times in the chest. The three wounds were large, gaping holes straight through the torso, tapering at one end and lined up neatly atop one another.

"Well," Rose said immediately upon seeing it, "it's safe to say that Karkat would have had a hard time doing _that."_

John had to agree. He'd never seen the troll wield a weapon that could leave such deep, gaping wounds.

"I found her a few minutes before I messaged you," Roxy said from a few feet behind them. Callie was latched onto her side, eyes wide as she clung to her friend. "The body was still warm when I found it, though it had cooled just slightly, so we can assume that she was killed maybe an hour before discovery. That would place the time of death at two in the afternoon, not too far away from the time of the first murder."

"Agreed." Rose knelt beside the body, eyeing the wounds with sterile curiosity. "Still, I think it's safe to say that the murders were not perpetrated by the same person. The styles of the two killers are completely different."

Roxy nodded. "I thought the same thing."

John watched, feeling an acute sense of uselessness, as Rose began to examine the body. She couldn't do a full examination, not with the clothing still on and the blood still present, but she did her best with what she had.

"What kind of a weapon could have done this?" Rose murmured. "Tapered wounds, three punctures all lined up in a row."

"It almost looks like a lance," Roxy suggested. "Like he was run through with a tapered lance three times in a row."

"Yes, but the way the wounds are lined up is so precise…it seems hard to believe that anyone could have done this so cleanly, considering that the dersite was most likely struggling the entire time he was being killed."

"So a three-pronged weapon," Roxy said. "A trident?"

"A trident," Rose confirmed in a soft voice. "Like Jane's."

"Wait," John burst out, flying in circles around the body. "Are you telling me that we've had two murders, and each one has mirrored the techniques of someone living on our planet? The first one looked like Karkat did it, and this one…"

"It looks like Jane was the perpetrator," Rose agreed. "Though it's safe to say that she did _not_ do this, we should still make sure she has an alibi. We should ask everyone, as soon as we find out if Karkat can prove where he was at the time of death."

"I'll take care of that!" John exclaimed eagerly. He was worried that the conversation between Dave and Karkat wouldn't go well after this most recent murder. "I can go right over and make sure everything is okay!"

Rose raised a brow. "Are you sure that's not an excuse to go make sure Dave and Karkat aren't having a yelling match in their front yard?"

"Nope, it absolutely is!"

One corner of her lips twitched upwards. "Very well, then. I suppose you can go there now. Truthfully, I just wanted to give Dave a head start without you breathing over his shoulder."

"What? Rose!"

"You're wasting time, John."

He jumped. "Crap! I have to go, I'll see you later!"

†††

"Hey dude, I'm coming in!" Dave called as he pushed open the front door to the home that had been built for him and Karkat to share. It had been left unlocked again. "Karkat! Are you in there?"

There was silence, and Dave's heart skipped a beat. _Fuck…you'd better be here, dude, or I'm not sure I can keep thinking there's no chance you're the one committing these murders._

He trekked into the living room, then stuck his head into the kitchen. When that yielded nothing but dusty surfaces and used dishes, he made his way upstairs and stuck his head into all the rooms. The master bedroom—the room he'd originally meant to share with Karkat—hadn't been touched. There was no one in the room that was presumably being used by John, and Karkat's room, though a bit of a mess, was vacant as well. No one in the bathrooms, no one in the alchemizing room, no one _anywhere._

He ground his teeth as he reached for the door to the back yard (which was technically the entire forest, seeing as there hadn't been the need to set up any kind of fencing). He stepped out into the back, eyes raking the flat plane of grass that gradually became a thick wall of trees.

And _shit_ —there he was.

Sitting in the middle of the soggy grass, pants visibly soaked from the morning dew that had never really burnt off, head bowed, hands draped limply across his lap.

After that, Dave had to fight himself as his traitorous body tried to scramble over to the troll like a lovesick, hormonal teenager. _Calm down there, Casanova. John just told you not to freak him the fuck out, and here you are about to run up on him from behind. Take a deep breath._

He did just that. He forced himself to take a deep breath, relax his muscles, and call out, "Hey, Karkat," in his coolest voice.

The troll didn't jump or even really respond past a hum, which was concerning in and of itself. He just sat there, limp and _subdued,_ and stared at the grass.

"Karkat?" Dave drew closer, keeping his movements smooth and nonthreatening. "Are you there, buddy? Pal? Friend o' mine?"

Karkat's head lolled to one side, eyes aiming sluggishly up at him. "Oh, hey, Strider…real fucking nice of you to stop by after stomping all over me last time."

His voice was a little shaky. And though his words were full of the ghosts of his usual fire, the fire itself had drained right out of him. _What happened to you, Karkat?_ "Dude, are you okay? Lookin' a little weak, there."

"It's nothing!" the troll bit out, but his form lacked all of its normal tension. "Just some stupid troll thing that happened on accident."

"A stupid troll thing that makes you go all…floppy?" Dave nudged his shoulder with a finger, and Karkat nearly fell completely over.

"I said it's nothing!" Karkat snapped furiously, still struggling not to fall over from the feather-light shove he'd received. "And if you have any respect for me, you'll get the fuck away until I regain my strength! Any decent troll would have run away the instant they found me like this! Or they would have culled me, and even _that_ would have been more tolerable than sitting here having to talk to _you!"_

Okay, then. Definitely defensive as hell. "Uh, right…" The troll was still trying not to fall over, which was completely ridiculous—and what was more ridiculous was the fact that he _failed,_ slumping onto the grass with a low groan. "Um…dude, you need a hand?"

Karkat snarled up at him. "Touch me and I'll cull you on the spot."

Somehow he didn't think he'd be able to follow through on that threat. "Okay, right—hang on, I'm getting you inside."

"Don't fucking _touch—"_

But Dave was already scooping him up, only slightly alarmed at the way Karkat just seemed to melt against him. He carried the troll's prone form back into the house, closing and locking the door behind him. Then he made his way upstairs. He briefly looked at Karkat's room (what a fucking mess, _honestly)_ , considering dragging him in there, but swiftly decided against it. Putting the guy in John's room just seemed like invasion of privacy. So, master bedroom it was.

Dave dumped Karkat unceremoniously onto the covers of the king-sized bed they'd alchemized together. The troll let out a tiny gasp as he came to rest there, wincing just slightly, but otherwise remained where he'd been thrown. He looked like a _doll._ What the fuck had _happened_ to him?

"Fuckass," the troll ground out. "What are you playing at, throwing me on your bed?"

"Not my bed," he reminded him. "Not yours either." He stood there, not entirely certain of what he was supposed to be doing. Should he try to comfort him? "So seriously…what happened to you?"

"There's no reason for me to tell you," Karkat sneered. "If I do, you'll just use it to render me a useless mess whenever you see fit."

"So it's a physical thing?" Dave asked. He had to admit, he was curious. Karkat had never told him much about troll anatomy, deciding it was too embarrassing to say anything about. Dave had no such reservations, and had spent a large chunk of time on the meteor torturing the troll with long, detailed descriptions of human anatomy while he writhed in embarrassment. "I could do this to you if I had the info?"

Karkat glared, and he realized his mistake.

"Not that I ever would or anything! Do that to you, I mean. I like you better when you're spitting fire."

The glare eased, though Dave suspected that it was more because Karkat was too tired to keep it up. "And I like you better when you're _not_ hovering over me like a creep."

He leaned back abruptly, not having realized he was getting so close. "Sorry."

The troll still wasn't moving. His left arm in particular was cocked at an odd angle, and Dave reached out to straighten it despite the vicious snarl sent his way. "Why are you even here, Strider?"

He hesitated. Was it really the best time to bring this up, with Karkat looking so weak? There was no way he'd murdered someone in this state.

Karkat blinked tiredly. "Dave?"

And just like that, Karkat and his sleepy, confused look made the decision to speak for him. "A dersite was murdered earlier today."

The troll's eyes widened, but nothing else moved. " _Another_ villager is dead? What happened?"

He shrugged. "Not sure. All I know is that Roxy found him stretched out in the forest not too far away from her home. Rose and John went to investigate."

"John?" Karkat echoed. "He'll be okay, won't he? There could be a fucking murderer hanging around, and he just went out there without a care in the world!"

Dave's heart pulsed with jealousy . "He'll be fine, dude. Stop worrying."

The troll's frowned. Then he glared, expression flooding with realization. "Wait…you came here to see if I killed him, didn't you? Fuck, how many times do I have to _tell_ you—?"

He held up a hand, stopping the tirade before it could really get going. "Just tell me where you were half an hour ago, and we should be good."

The glare intensified, but released a moment later as a visible wave of exhaustion shook him. "I was lying in the grass in the backyard, struggling to regain control of my fine motor skills. Is that satisfactory?"

"Can you prove it?"

"I messaged Terezi several times. You're welcome to go through my trollian messages and check the time stamp, but _don't. Fucking. Read. The messages."_

 _Woah._ "Okay, dude, I get it! I won't read your messages. Where's your computer?"

Karkat groaned. Then slowly, sluggishly, he raised a hand and plucked the thing out of his sylladex. "There."

Dave snatched it up and opened it, immediately going for trollian and pulling up the most recent conversation. It was Terezi, as promised, and he kept himself from reading the messages as he scrolled down to the very bottom and checked the last time stamp, then the very first. The first was two, the last was two fifteen. He closed the laptop and set it on the side table, suspecting that Karkat wouldn't want to waste energy on returning it to his sylladex. Then he pulled out his phone and fired off a message to Rose, requesting the suspected time of death.

 _Two,_ was the response, and Dave couldn't resist a tiny smile as he told her that Karkat had been talking to someone on Trollian at that exact time. He had an alibi. He had an honest to god alibi. _Take that, Dirk._

He sent Rose a message of farewell, promising he'd let her explain the murder later, and returned his attention to Karkat. "Good news, Karkles. Your little convo with Terezi puts you in the clear."

He actually looked relieved. "Really? Well that's a lucky fucking break, that's for sure."

"Yeah…" He trailed off. A perpetual loop of John's scathing words had been buzzing in the back of his mind since they'd spoken, and now that the threat of Karkat being persecuted was no longer there, those words were just back stronger than ever, cycling in continual loops of _you're being selfish, you're hurting him, you're hurting yourself, you're both being idiots, you need to talk to him._

 _He's right,_ Dave thought. _A little right, at least. The guy's a fucking mess and it's partially my fault, so…I guess maybe I owe him a little bit of an explanation. Just maybe._

"Stop that," Karkat grumbled, eyes half-lidded as he lounged against the pillows.

"Stop what?"

"Thinking. It's loud."

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best time to bring up their relationship problems, with Karkat looking like he'd just gone through a blender. A very _sleepy_ blender. But self-control had never been his strong suit when it came to the troll, and so before he could stop himself he was blurting out, "We should talk about this," then nearly beating his head against the wall in frustration as he realized what he'd said.

Karkat blinked at him blearily. "I told you, it's just some ridiculous part of troll biology, and I'm not fucking discussing it with _you."_

"No, not about that, about…" And here he hesitated, hardly believing what he was about to say. It was so goddamn cheesy. "…About us."

 _That_ seemed to wake him up a little. The troll shifted slightly, finally seeming to regain a bit of control as he pushed himself up against the headboard. "Oh, great—you're finally planning on apologizing, right? Because I swear to gog, if I've been suffering in silence for—"

"Please," Dave teased. "As _if_ you've ever done _anything_ silently."

He bristled furiously. "Fuck of, Strider!"

"Not until I explain a few things," he said. He'd wimped out on talking to Karkat so many times before; he wasn't going to let himself be scared off now. Or made so furious that he left, which seemed far more likely given Karkat's personality. "I'll leave you the fuck alone for as long as you want after this, just give me the chance to at least tell you what happened." He didn't _want_ that, though. He didn't want Karkat to order him away, he wanted to _stay_ with him.

"You mean other than you running out with no explanation? Telling me nothing and the bolting right the fuck out the door?"

He bit back a groan. "Just shut up and listen for a moment!"

Karkat fell silent, teeth clicking audibly as he snapped his jaws shut. It seemed he actually wanted to hear this, then. What a surprise.

"Look…" He had to take a moment to collect himself. He was _not_ going to lose his cool. "I wasn't ever going to tell you any of this, but John slapped me around a bit and convinced me to talk to you. So you have him to thank for this."

He didn't miss the way Karkat's eyes lit up at the mention of his new housemate. "He did that?"

Dave shrugged. "Well, verbally. But that's not the point. The point is, I didn't leave because I was uncomfortable, or I wasn't a homosexual, or anything like that."

Karkat snorted. "Yeah, I figured that one out a long while before you did, fuckass."

He ignored the comment, refusing to let himself be drawn into a fight. "Look, dude—just sit there for a few minutes without opening your mouth, because I'm not explaining this again."

A nod, not altogether displeased. "Fine. Shoot."

"Okay. Right." He took a deep breath. This wasn't something he was comfortable with, telling Karkat exactly what had been going on with him, but…John was right. He deserved to know. "So we spent a lot of time together on the meteor. You probably noticed that I'm not the most, ah… _articulate_ person around when it comes to the whole _emotions_ thing." He paused there, waiting for the inevitable snarky comment. But when it didn't come, he realized that maybe, _just maybe_ , Karkat was actually intending on shutting up for once. "I've been through some shit with my family and some even worse shit in the game. Really fucked up shit, actually, now that I'm looking back on it. It's left me a little…well, it's left me _me._ And you know, a part of being close to someone is sharing your pain and all that bullshit…but I _know_ that if I ever tried to share any of the shit that's happened to me, it would just drag down whoever I was sharing it with. It'd hurt them, twist them all up on the inside knowing they have to deal with me and all of my shit, and it wouldn't end well. So…that's why I left. It wasn't because you did anything wrong, or because I just decided I didn't want you anymore. It was just because I didn't want to hurt you."

He let out his breath in one, sharp whoosh, relieved at finally having told Karkat the truth. It had been eating at him, he realized, eating at him ever since he'd left the troll behind. And though his stomach was still twisting sickeningly at how _open_ he'd just had to make himself, he knew it was something that Karkat deserved. If he was suffering because of it, he needed to know the truth. He cursed himself that he'd been too blind to see that until John came along and yelled at him.

He only hoped that Karkat appreciated the great lengths he'd just gone to.

But…when he looked up, he was surprised to see that the troll was giving him the darkest look he'd ever seen.

"So," Karkat growled, "the mystery is solved. The grand mystery of why the _fuck_ Dave Strider up and waltzed out of the hive he helped me create is _fucking_ _solved_. Look at how appreciative I am, Strider! Look at how happy I am that you decided to protect me and my delicate emotional state by ditching me! I'm right over the fucking moon, imagine that!"

Dave stared, not quite sure how to react. He hadn't been expecting Karkat to thank him, but he hadn't expected him to be quite this livid.

Karkat was kneeling on the bed now, though it was obvious that he still hadn't recovered from whatever weird thing had happened to him to make him go all subdued. His fingers curled and uncurled rhythmically in the sheets, claws nicking the fabric. "Fucking incredible! I've been agonizing over this for _months_ , trying to wrap my pan around why you just up and left me, and it turns out that you're just a complete fuckass with no interpersonal skills!"

"Like you're any better!" Dave snapped before he could stop himself. "Your response to being dumped was to shut yourself away and refuse to talk to anyone!"

"And whose fault was that, Dave? _Whose fucking fault was that?"_

"I was trying to protect you!"

"Well _congratu-fucking-lations_ you grubfucking wiggler, because from where I'm standing it looks like you're the one that started up all these nightmares and turned my life into a living hell, all because you wanted to _protect_ me!"

"You'd be in a hell of a lot more pain if I'd stayed with you!"

"I dealt with you for three fucking years and was completely fine! No, I was _better_ than fine, I was the best I've ever been in my entire miserable life! I don't know what you thought was going to change once we got here, what was going to make me start caving under the pressure of all your fucked up baggage, but whatever it was, it _didn't_ change, and you've just made things a hundred times worse by trying to _protect_ me! I'm a troll, Dave, and a mutantblood at that! I've had to protect myself my entire life; I don't need _you_ trying to keep me safe—and not by running off right when I was starting to actually think that we could be matesprits!"

He jolted. "You thought we could be—?" But no, that was a stupid question—it had been obvious that Karkat was into him.

"Well, that's all gone right out the window!" Karkat snarled. "You'd better be ready to fucking _grovel_ if you want me to forgive you, because you've caused me _so much fucking pain—"_

"I was just trying to make sure I didn't drag you down with me!" he insisted again. "Come on, Karkles, I didn't want you to get hurt!"

"Don't fucking call me that!" the troll hissed. "You have no right to call me that!"

"But it's not my—!"

He was growling. A low, threatening sound in the back of his throat, weak though it was. "If you try to tell me it's not your fault, I swear to gog I will flay you alive."

"But—!"

The growl deepened. Dave recoiled. And suddenly, instinctively, with every fiber of his being, he knew what was about to happen.

Karkat was going to attack him.

It happened so quickly that Dave barely had time to react. Karkat launched himself forward with all his strength (which wasn't much, fortunately) and reached out with vicious claws, aiming right for his eyes. The only thing that saved his vision was his shades, which took the brunt of the blow and came dangerously close to cracking from the force of the troll's claws.

"Fuck!" Dave yelped, leaping backward off the bed and flash stepping to one side as Karkat dove for his throat. "Uncalled for, dude! I was just trying to explain myself!"

Karkat didn't respond. He just swiped again, limbs sluggish and feeble, and tried to sink his claws into the human's flesh.

It was kind of completely pathetic, Dave thought. The troll was obviously still weak, hardly able to keep himself up as he flailed at him. "Hey, cut it out! You're just going to hurt yourself!"

Again, there was no response but an increase in the number of claws scrabbling at his skin.

"Dude, I don't want to do this!" He ducked as Karkat's hand came swinging at his face. "Come on, Kar, just—oof!" He let out a dull hiss as the troll finally managed to hook his claws into his skin, tearing five shallow lines of scarlet across his cheek. "Okay, but you asked for it!" He grabbed Karkat by the wrists, keeping his claws well away from his bleeding face, and swung him around towards the bed. A single push sent him crashing back to the mattress, landing with a soft gasp. For a moment Dave congratulated himself as the troll stayed down. But then he was up again, even more furious than before and lunging at his eyes. He just _wasn't stopping_ , was scrambling after him and doing his best to tear his throat out, and if Dave didn't stop him _now_ they were both going to end up hurt.

 _Okay, that's it. For real this time._

He didn't give himself the chance to think about what he was doing. He just pulled back, pushed Karkat back with one hand, and clocked him straight in the face. And _that_ did the trick. He crashed back onto the mattress, whimpering as both hands rose to cup his right eye, and stayed there. Completely motionless save for a few light tremors.

 _Fucking finally,_ Dave thought, both sickened and relieved. _Now just stay down, and—_

"What the _hell_ is going on here?"

His stomach dropped. _Fuck._

John stood in the doorway, eyes wide as he took in the scene before him. "Dave?" Then he looked to the bed. _"Karkat?"_

 _Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck…_

John pushed right past him with a horrified expression, going straight for Karkat. He gasped the moment he saw the red rings around his wrists from where Dave had grabbed him just a little too harshly. "Kar…Karkat, are you okay?"

The troll just shook slightly, caught in a mixture of shock at being punched and sluggishness from whatever the hell had made him go all funny in the head.

"Your eye," John realized. "Karkat, let me see your eye!"

The troll made no move to comply.

"Okay, fine…just don't freak out!" John hooked his fingers around Karkat's wrists and gently moved them away from his face. Then there was an audible hiss as the Heir drew in a sharp breath, and his eyes were on Dave's a heartbeat later. "Was Dirk already here when you showed up? You should have messaged me!"

 _Dirk?_ His heart leapt with hope as he realized that John thought _Dirk_ had done this. Maybe he could play it off, make him think—

"No…wait, that can't be right."

He froze.

"Dirk doesn't know about the murder, and if he was going to attack Karkat he would have already done it. This…this was _you,_ wasn't it!"

He winced. So much for keeping it under wraps.

"Dave, I…I can't _believe_ you!" John cried out, stalking over to him, every part of him held tight with tension. "I trusted you to take care of this, and you _attacked_ him?"

"No, no! _He_ attacked _me_ , dude, I only punched him because he was going for my throat!" He waved a hand at the lines of red dripping down his face. "He scratched me!"

"I don't care _what_ he did, you should know better than to solve your problems through violence!"

"But he _clawed—"_

John snarled, an angry expression twisting his features hideously. It wasn't a good look on him. " _Get_ _out."_

"Wait, I need to explain!"

"Get out of here, Dave! Get out and don't come back!"

He nearly gasped. _Don't come back? But…!_

John took a step closer, his colorful war hammer appearing in his hands with a gust of wind. _"Leave,_ Dave. Before I _make you."_

 _John's going to attack me?_ He was so startled at the thought of happy-go-lucky John actually pulling a weapon on him that he didn't move until the wind in the room really started to pick up, ruffling his hair and nearly dragging his scratched shades right off his face. But then he realized that his friend meant business, and he knew that he had to leave.

 _I'll work this out with them later,_ he decided. _After they've had time to cool down._

But there wasn't time to think about that. All there was time to do was run, scrambling out of the room and down the stairs as John sent a threatening blast of air to chase him through the front door.

 _Fuck, I really messed this up. Karkat…I'm so sorry._


	8. Dirk: Take Matters Into Your Own Hands

***Squints in frustration at this chapter.***

 **Chapter 8:** **Dirk: Take Matters Into Your Own Hands**

* * *

Karkat came back to his senses slowly, sighing in relief as the final flickers of submission-inducing biological chemicals were pumped out of his system. _Thank fuck that's over. I thought was going out of my pan._ He rolled onto his back on whatever surface he was laying on, vaguely wondering where he was and just what had happened after he'd fallen asleep. He'd slipped into unconsciousness right after John burst in, and was having a hard time remembering much of what had happened in the minutes prior to his lapse.

 _Something important…something serious…_

His eye throbbed suddenly, and he winced.

Wait…his eye?

…Oh. _Oh._

It all came flooding back to him suddenly, and he felt every part of him tense as he recalled everything that had happened before he'd fallen asleep. Dave's confession, their fight, then John bursting in and chasing Dave off with a murderous expression on his face. He'd never seen him so upset.

What had happened after that, though? He'd fallen asleep, so he wasn't sure. Mercifully, it seemed as though his rest had been completely devoid of nightmares for a change.

Something rustled beside him. "Karkat? Are you awake?"

He hummed, still trying to drag all of his fine motor skills back online.

"Oh, good…" The voice sounded relieved. "I grabbed you an ice pack for your eye. It's a bit melted now, but it should still be cold enough to bring down the swelling."

Something cool was pressed tentatively to the side of his face (which was cold already, he realized, so the ice pack must have already been used there recently), soothing the throbbing pain. He hummed contentedly, pressing into the icy exterior of the pack.

"You didn't have nightmares," the voice said knowingly. "You didn't wake up once after you fell asleep, and you never fidgeted. Maybe that means you're feeling a little better now?"

Another hum.

The ice pack was removed. "You should try to open your eyes. I'm a little concerned that the right will be too swollen to open, but I'm sure we can get it back to normal with some of Jane's healing magic. Oh, and she can look at your sides, too! I know they must be hurting you still."

He barely registered the words. Open his eyes, huh? He could do that.

…Or maybe he could _half_ do that, because as he tried to pry open his heavy lids, he realized that only one of them was listening. The other was puffy to the touch, closing his vision off like a vice clamped around his eye.

"Heh…that's what I thought would happen."

Karkat rolled his one good eye over to the source of the voice, and wasn't surprised in the least to see that John was sitting on the mattress beside him. They were still in the master bedroom, right where Dave had left them. "Hmph."

John returned to pressing the ice pack against his swollen skin. "He really did a number on you, Karkat. There are bruises around your wrists, too, but they're not bad. And I saw that you clawed right across Dave's cheek and scratched his shades." He chuckled. "He's not going to be happy about having to repair them."

He was so calm…so collected. Karkat envied him.

"Now, are you feeling okay? You seemed a bit sluggish when I found you last night."

He nodded. His head was aching— _everything_ was aching, really—but he knew he needed to answer if he didn't want John getting panicky on him. "I'm fucking _fantastic_ ," he managed in a low rumble. He didn't sound fantastic, though—his voice was scratchy. "What happened to Dave?"

Just like he'd flipped a switch, John's expression darkened. "I sent him back where he belongs. He won't be bothering us here again, not unless he wants me to blast him off the face of the planet."

"You…chased him off?"

"Yep. Spooked him real good, I think…I threw him right out the front door. Nearly knocked his shades off, too."

"But he's okay, right?" He'd been furious with Dave the previous night in the height of his delirium, but if he'd been hurt because of him…

"I'm sure he's fine. But seriously, you shouldn't be worrying about him. He _attacked_ you, Karkat!"

He winced, knowing full well that that wasn't really the truth. "No…"

"What do you mean _no?_ He decked you in the face!"

Karkat tried to sit up, but a hand on his chest kept him lying firmly across the mattress. _"I_ attacked _him_ ," he muttered, resigning himself to staying right where he was. "He tried to make things right with me and I attacked him because he's a fucking _idiot_ that doesn't know when to shut up, and I was blinded by anger."

"But he still shouldn't have—!"

"John, _listen_ to me," Karkat bit out, beginning to wake up more and more with every passing moment. "It really wasn't his fault. Well, that's not entirely true—he's the one that thought it was a good idea to _abandon_ me out of his own selfishness then act like it was a good fucking idea—but it's not his fault that _this_ happened." He waved a hand up at his face. "I'm the one that wouldn't stop attacking him, he just lashed out to keep from getting hurt."

John's features twisted in a mixture of irritation and pity. "He still shouldn't have punched you! He deserves to pay for this, and I'm not going to let him back around you before he get his head on straight and realizes that he's being an idiot!"

The troll cocked his head, staring up at John in wonderment.

"I _know_ he could have found a way to calm you down without hurting you, but he still decided to attack! He's supposed to be my best friend, but if he goes around just lashing out at you for his own ridiculous shortcomings, I'm not sure if I can keep—"

He kept going, but Karkat wasn't listening anymore. He just kept staring up at John, ranting and raving without showing any sign of stopping, and wondered if John knew what he was doing. Or if _he_ knew what _he_ was doing. Because as John kept talking, Karkat's hand rose in response to the magnetic attraction it suddenly had to the human's face, and batted gently at his cheek.

John stopped mid sentence the instant he felt it. "Kar—?"

Then he did it again, drawing his hand back and patting the side of John's face with vague fascination. _What the fuck am I doing right now?_

"What…?"

He did it again. "Hey."

"Yeah…?"

"It's going to be okay, fuckass."

Okay, it probably wasn't the most comforting thing he could have said. But John seemed to appreciate it, the angry lines creased into his forehead lessening in severity. "Oh, um…thanks."

The two just stared at each other, then, John leaning his face into Karkat's palm, Karkat pressing back in an almost stunned state of awe. But then the spell was broken, and the troll slid his hand away with an embarrassed huff. John leaned back at the same time, and much to Karkat's relief, he seemed to be done ranting.

"I guess if you really aren't intent upon blaming him, I can tolerate his presence," John said slowly, hesitantly. "But _not_ until you're absolutely certain that the two of you aren't going to be at each other's throats again. I care about you, Karkat, and I don't want you go end up hurt because of this! I never want to see you looking that way again. When I walked in and found you lying there in such a sorry state, I was worried someone had really injured you!"

And just like that everything shifted into startling clarity, and Karkat found himself wondering if John _knew_ he was his moirail. Probably not, he'd always been completely hopeless.

"Seriously, don't let it happen again!"

Should he say something?

"I'm not always going to be around to drag your assailants off you, you know!"

…No, he really shouldn't. It was as he'd said to Terezi—John didn't believe in the quadrant system, he definitely wasn't a homosexual, and he would probably just get really weirded out if Karkat tried to make a pale advance on him. It was better like this, he decided. John could keep on being his friend, Karkat could keep being _his_ …his _friend_ , and maybe one day John would be mature enough to realize what was really going on.

 _Fuck, that sounds miserable._

"Now come on, we should really get you back to your room. You should rest in your own bed, it'll make you more comfortable."

 _But…if this is the only way I get to have John, then I'll just have to deal with it._

†††

\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

TG: hey karkat

TG: ...

TG: you there?

TG: well even if you're not and you're just crying on john's shoulder or some shit, i really think i need to apologize for how things went down yesterday

TG: i mean, you definitely attacked me and i wouldn't have had to defend myself if you hadn't, but i think you're probably right about this being a massive pileup in my fucking fault alley

TG: so yeah

TG: i talked to rose about this whole mess, and she said the same thing she did last time

TG: that i'm being an idiot, that i never should have let my 'selfishness' get in the way of our beautiful relationship, etc

TG: so...sorry

TG: and i know you're really upset at me right now

TG: like

TG: really fucking upset

TG: but if you decide you want to talk to me and maybe work this whole thing out, i'm all ears

TG: well not literally

TG: but you know

TG: all metaphorically and shitor

TG: ...

TG: talk to you later i guess

\- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

CG: DAVE.

TG: woah, you're alive!

TG: i was beginning to think john had locked you in the basement and was never going to let you leave

TG: like some sort of serial killer

CG: LOOK I'M NOT IN THE FUCKING MOOD TO DO THIS, SO LET'S JUST WORK OUR SHIT OUT.

TG: well if that's what you want

TG: i'm sorry

TG: how about we start with that?

TG: dunno if you read the messages i sent you a few hours ago, but that's a quick summary

TG: so yeah

TG: never should have punched you, trying to stay away from you was selfish and completely pointless

TG: etc

CG: YOU FUCKING BET IT WAS POINTLESS

CG: I AM SO GOGDAMN PISSED AT YOU RIGHT NOW, YOU DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND. IF JOHN WEREN'T HERE TO QUELL ALL OF MY RIGHTEOUS FURY, I WOULD STORM RIGHT THE FUCK OVER TO YOUR HIVE AND BASH OUT ALL THE WINDOWS WITH MY FACE.

TG: sounds painful, but okay

CG: OH NO, I'M NOT DONE

TG: well lay into me then, i deserve it

TG: i'm a heap of steaming garbage and all that, get on with it

CG: ACTUALLY, AS MUCH AS IT WOULD FILL ME WITH UNENDING PLEASURE TO CHEW YOU OUT OVER THIS DISASTER, THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED TO SAY.

CG: WHAT I REALLY WANT TO SAY

CG: OR NEED TO SAY, I GUESS

CG: IS THAT I'M SORRY.

TG: wait what

CG: YES, YOU HEARD ME RIGHT

CG: I'M SORRY

CG: LAUGH IT UP.

TG: wait wait wait

TG: are you being serious right now?

CG: YEAH.

CG: DON'T GET ME WRONG, YOU'RE STILL A RAGING FUCKASS FOR THINKING YOU WERE PROTECTING ME BY STAYING AWAY

CG: BUT THE FIGHT WAS MY FAULT.

CG: I ATTACKED YOU, YOU DEFENDED YOURSELF. END OF STORY.

CG: SO YEAH.

TG: wow, uh

TG: thanks

TG: maybe you should try telling that to john, though, so he doesn't bash my face in the next time he sees me

CG: DON'T WORRY, I'VE ALREADY TAKEN CARE OF THAT.

CG: HE KNOWS IT WAS MY FAULT.

TG: really?

TG: thanks for that

TG: i'd hate to lose my best friend over something as stupid as this

CG: YEAH

CG: ...

TG: ...

TG: so...

TG: what are we now, anyways?

TG: now that you know the truth about why i ditched you like that

CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

TG: i mean, i kinda confessed that i only really ditched you because of my own selfish reasons, not because of the sexuality thing, or because i was just tired of everything

CG: ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT YOU STILL PITY ME?

CG: AFTER ALL THIS GARBAGE?

TG: um...

TG: yeah?

TG: i think that's what i'm suggesting, assuming that you mean pity of the red variety

TG: and by pity you mean love

TG: i have no interest in punching you in the face ever again, no way

TG: not into the whole hatelove thing

CG: OH GOG NO, YOU'D MAKE A TERRIBLE KISMESIS.

TG: thanks for the vote of confidence

CG: YOU'RE WELCOME.

CG: BUT DAVE

CG: I THINK MAYBE

CG: THAT WE SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM EACH OTHER FOR A WHILE.

TG: wait, why the fuck would we do that?

TG: i just told you that i still like you, why shouldn't we do the whole running into each other's arms thing?

CG: BECAUSE YOU RIPPED BY BLOOD PUSHER OUT, YOU SHITPANNED IDIOT!

TG: oh yeah

CG: LOOK...

CG: I'M NOT SAYING NEVER. I'M JUST SAYING THAT RIGHT NOW I NEED SOME TIME TO CLEAR MY HEAD, AND HAVING YOU AROUND PROBABLY ISN'T GOING TO HELP.

CG: SO LET'S JUST KEEP OUR DISTANCE, AND I'LL MESSAGE YOU WHEN I MAKE UP MY MIND.

TG: so no talking?

TG: like, ever?

CG: NO, WE CAN STILL TALK

CG: JUST GIVE ME A FEW GOGDAMN DAYS TO GET MY THINK PAN RUNNING THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO, AND THEN THIS WILL ALL WORK ITSELF OUT.

CG: IN THE MEANTIME, YOU CAN THINK ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT YOU REALLY WANT THIS FUCKING DISASTER OF A RELATIONSHIP TO WORK OUT

CG: BECAUSE I'M NOT JUMPING BACK IN JUST FOR YOU TO PULL OUT AT THE LAST MOMENT

TG: hehe

CG: WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LAUGHING?

TG: oh, no reason

CG: ...

CG: DEAR SWEET TROLL JEGUS, YOU AND YOUR DIRTY MIND

CG: GOODBYE, DAVE.

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

TG: oh dude wait

TG: tell john that we're meeting in the center of town to discuss the most recent murder

TG: be there at 12:00

†††

Only a few hours later, John and Karkat found themselves right in the middle of town in the same exact position they'd been in the last time a meeting like this had been called.

"Karkat has an alibi," Rose was saying for the tenth time, shooting Dirk an even gaze. "Continuing to suspect him would be foolish."

"He was talking with Terezi from two to two fifteen," was the response. "And we said that the murder most likely took place around two. From where I'm standing, it's entirely likely that our favorite troll whacked the dersite and then messaged Terezi immediately afterwards."

"It's incredibly unlikely that—!"

"Everyone else can prove where they were and what they were doing without a shadow of a doubt," Dirk insisted.

"But Karkat doesn't own a trident!"

"Doesn't mean he couldn't have taken one of Jane's." Dirk glanced over to Jane, asking, "Did you notice any of them missing around the time of the murder?"

Jane shook her head helplessly. "No, but I wasn't paying attention. It's entirely possible that one of them had been taken."

"I'll be sure to examine all of your tridents for evidence," Rose said curtly.

"You're free to stop by anytime," Jane replied, while Dirk practically talked over her from a few feet away.

"All I'm saying is that it's a _little_ suspicious that another murder is committed the instant John leaves the guy alone."

John glanced to Karkat nervously, watching for any sign that he was about to snap and attack his accuser. But to his relief, the troll seemed completely under control. He was glaring, but that was the extent of his anger. _In any case, we're just running ourselves in circles here. Dirk keeps accusing, we keep deflecting…something has to give sooner or later._

"We can't prove who did this," Rose said. "We're gathered here to share information, not blindly accuse each other. And while we're here, I intend to issue a warning. It should be obvious, but I expect all of us to be on the alert for any sign of the murderer." Dirk scoffed, and she raised her voice to drown him out. "So far we've seen two deaths, but it's unreasonable to think that there won't be more. We can only be cautious and take measures to make sure that one of _us_ isn't found next."

An eerie silence settled over them.

Then, "This is really serious," Jade whispered. "There's really a murderer running around!"

Jane placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling reassuringly. "It's going to be okay! We'll catch this guy and make sure he never hurts anyone again."

"Yeah," Roxy chimed in. "We're all going to look out for each other, and we can keep an eye out for the villagers too. They're pretty spooked by this whole thing."

"Yes," Rose said, "that would be an excellent idea. So long as we stay on guard, we should be fine." Her eyes flickered to Dirk. "We _all_ need to watch out for each other. Do I make myself clear?"

Dirk looked away shortly. Everyone else, though, seemed entirely willing to help. Even Karkat gave a begrudging nod, glaring at Dirk the whole time.

"So it's settled then. We'll see this through to the end together."

†††

"See this through to the end my ass," Dirk growled, stomping off towards the house he shared with Jake. "Anyone with eyes can see that Dave's pet troll is the one doing this." He'd wanted to stomp off the moment the meeting ended, but unfortunately Jane and Roxy had swooped in to talk to him while everyone else started to disperse. Unsurprisingly, Karkat had been the first one to leave, followed by John, then Dave, then the others. By the time he managed to escape, he was bristling furiously with every breath.

"Dirk, wait for me!"

Jake's clumsy footsteps crashed through town behind him, but he was too upset to slow down. "He _murdered_ that prospitarian, and now a dersite is dead because of him!"

"Dirk!" Jake called again, panting as he finally managed to catch up. "Wait for me, old chum!"

He fumed silently. _Dave's had to go through hell because of that idiotic excuse for a troll; I will_ not _sit around and watch him torture himself over someone as useless as Karkat. Not someone as_ murderous _as him._

"You know, it really doesn't look like Karkat's the one committing the murders!" Jake tried, struggling to keep pace with him. "Maybe we should just drop it and move on?"

"It _was_ him," Dirk insisted. "The guy's an unstable wreck, and that first murder makes it obvious that he's the one doing this."

"Ah, but this most recent murder makes it look like Jane is the one to blame, just like the first murder pointed to Karkat! You don't think that maybe someone is doing this and framing us all one by one, perhaps?"

He shook his head. "It's more likely that Karkat killed that first prospitarian, maybe on accident, then decided to keep killing in order to make us think that it _wasn't_ him. That's why he framed Jane, and why he'll probably _keep_ framing other people as the deaths increase in number."

"Oh, but that's so complicated! Don't you think that maybe Occam's razor dictates—?"

"Occam's razor doesn't _dictate_ anything, dude. And I'm right about this, I _know_ it. I can feel it."

"But you're behaving so irrationally! I understand that you were upset with Karkat because you think he caused Dave pain, but taking it this far is ridiculous!"

Dirk chose to ignore that little jab at his mental state. Instead he stormed up to his front door, entirely intent upon going inside to tinker in solitude for a few hours.

Suddenly, he froze.

"Jake?"

"Yes? What's troubling you?"

"Do…do you smell that?"

Jake paused, head tilted to one side as he sucked in a deep breath through his nose. Then his features contorted as he gasped, "Oh! I do say, that is quite the unpleasant odor! Iron, perhaps? Copper?"

Dirk's heart skipped a beat. "Blood."

"Blood! Are you certain?"

"I lived through the great fish apocalypse; I'm pretty sure I know what blood smells like." He turned on heel, searching for the source of the smell. _There…on the grass leading to the forest…_

Dirk flash stepped forward, kneeling in the grass and pressing two fingers to the splotches of red. They came away coppery and slick, and he knew immediately that this was _bad._ Had a third murder already been committed, not a day after the second? Not an _hour_ after their last meeting?

"Gadzooks! Is that really…?"

"It is," he confirmed lowly. He wiped his fingers on his pants, thinking to himself that he would have to throw them out later. But there were more important things to worry about right now—things such as the trail of blood spatters leading deeper and deeper into the forest, which he followed with morbid curiosity. The further he went, the larger the spatters became. Soon enough Jake was gagging violently behind him as they stumbled across the body of yet another murdered prospitarian.

"Another murder," Jake managed, finished retching into the bushes. " _Again?_ So soon after the second?"

"The blood's fresh," Dirk observed grimly, circling the dead prospitarian. It was a male this time, he noticed. Male, and he'd been completely pulverized. It was as if someone had taken their bare fists to the poor guy until he'd been completely beaten to a pulp. "Couldn't have been dead for more than a few minutes."

"Oh no…" Jake turned away, eyes watering. "This is horrible, Dirk!"

He got to his feet, expression dark. "Yeah, it's really awful—and I know who did it."

"Surely you can't think—!"

"Karkat left the meeting before anyone else. And with the time the two of us were talking to Roxy and Jane, he would have had plenty of time to slink over here and murder someone."

"But he's really not strong enough to do something like this! I mean, the poor prospitarian looks like he was beaten to a pulp by someone with incredible strength!"

"It was him," Dirk snarled, anger coiling in the pit of his stomach. "It was _him,_ Jake, and this has gone too far! If the others aren't going to do something about this, then I will!"

Jake jumped, startled. "Surely you can't mean—!"

Dirk straightened, katana already in hand. "If no one else has the balls to take the guy out, then I'll do it for them!"

"But Dirk, you can't kill him!"

"Don't have to. If I slice off his hands, he won't be _able_ to kill anyone else."

Jake's expression twisted with horror. "You really can't! This is wrong, you don't have any real evidence! And what happens when John and Dave find out? They're respectable gentlemen; they'll go after you for sure if you hurt someone they consider a friend!"

"You'll just have to have my back on this," was the grating response. "You're a decent shot, so you'll have to keep Dave and John off me while I go for Karkat. The guy's a weakling, it shouldn't take me long to disable him."

"Oh, I don't think I'm comfortable with this!"

"Well it's your choice, dude. But I'm going to attack Karkat, and it'll be pretty dangerous for me if Dave and John catch on. Wouldn't put it past Dave to try and kill me, too. Could get pretty serious."

Jake fidgeted, conflicted. "I don't want you to get hurt…"

"Then tag along and keep those two dorks off me."

He hesitated. "Well…you really won't consider just leaving this well enough alone?"

"Not a chance in hell."

"Then I guess…I can help you a little? But I'm not killing anyone, and you shouldn't either!"

He scoffed. "No worries. The troll will only die if Dave and John can't stop the bleeding in time—and that will be on _them_ , not me." He twirled his sword, the blade catching the sunlight menacingly.

 _Better hide your little pet, Dave. Because I'm coming for him._

†††

Hours later, long after the twin suns had sunk low in the sky and John had left him alone in his room, Karkat sat on the edge of his sleep slat and watched the silhouette in the window as it knocked at the glass.

Another hallucination. He was getting used to them now, which probably wasn't a good sign. He should call John, but…

 _"Kar? Kar, I know you can hear me you lowblood bottomfeeder!"_

…But he was far too entranced by the sound of that voice to do so.

 _"You could hear me on that coddamn cliff back there, so you can hear me now! Open the fuckin' window!"_

Opening the window was a very bad idea. Talking to hallucinations was an even worse idea. Acknowledging the figments of his long-dead friends was the worst idea. The absolute fucking worst.

 _"Kar, I swear to cod if you don't answer me right now I'm gonna go find Gam and make him beat some sense into you!"_

He shook his head, pulling his knees up to his chest. _I should call John._

A low hiss sounded from outside the window, and then those claws were scraping down the glass again. _"You're the only one who can hear us, you wretched mutant, so fuckin' listen for a change!"_

Another shake of the head. The figment probably couldn't see him, but it made _him_ feel better at least.

 _"Come outside, Kar. Come out here so we can sea you. I promise we won't krill you if you make your way out here right now."_

He shuddered.

 _"We're all here. All of your friends. Don't you want to sea us again? 'Cause we wanna sea you, Kar. Shore are lookin' forward to talkin' again…"_

He was on his feet. When had he stood up?

 _"That's it…come to me."_

Oh, this was bad. He was walking without having willed himself to move, legs bringing him closer to the window.

 _"Open the window."_

He did, motions robotic and stiff. _Shit. Fuck. What am I doing? Why can't I stop myself?_ He tried to call out for John, but his vocal cords were locked. It was as if someone else had control of him, and was forcing him to bend to their will.

 _"Now climb outside…"_

 _No. No. Stop!_ But his body wasn't his own. He slipped outside despite his strongest attempts to keep himself inside, and felt his bare feet strike the damp earth with a thud.

 _"Aww, sea that? That wasn't so bad, was it?"_

He bristled, feeling breath ghost the back of his neck.

Then there was an entirely new voice. _"Come on, don't scare Karkitty! He's the only one that can see us right now, and you're gonna make him run away!"_

His blood pusher skipped a beat. Several beats, actually.

 _"Not my problem he's a fuckin' scum sucker."_

 _"But you're being so_ mean!"

The first voice said something back, but Karkat wasn't listening anymore. He had to _see_. He had to see the figments, had to see the bodies of the people talking to him. He had to _know._

He braced himself. Tensed every muscle in his body, preparing to receive the biggest shock of his life. And then he turned, and—

Nothing.

He blinked, stunned. There was no one around him. No one in the clearing he called a backyard. No figments. No more voices.

They were just… _gone._

And of _course_ they were gone, they were just hallucinations! This whole thing was completely ridiculous!

Karkat took a few steps out into the center of the backyard, not quite able to believe that there was nothing there. But there _really_ _was_ nothing, he realized—and so he turned, preparing to head back into his house, and—

And then he screeched as something very solid, very _real,_ crashed into him and knocked him flat on his face. He struggled, trying to scream for John, but he was maneuvered harshly onto his back before he had the chance to even open his mouth.

"Don't fucking scream," snarled a familiar voice. "We don't want to get John's attention, now, do we?"

Karkat's eyes widened, fighting to make out the features of the person looming over him. It was dark, _so_ dark—but the voice gave him away, as did the pointed shades that stabbed up into the night air. "Dir—!"

A hand sealed over his mouth. "What did I just say about alerting John? It's bad enough that you yelped when I tackled you!"

Karkat squirmed beneath Dirk's solid form, struggling to throw him off. But the human was surprisingly strong, or Karkat was surprisingly weak, because he found himself unable to fight his way free.

"Now," Dirk growled, "you wouldn't happen to know anything about a third murder, would you? A prospitarian that was completely pulverized?"

He gasped, but it was muffled against Dirk's palm. _A third murder?_

"Well?"

He shook his head, realizing that the human was actually expecting a response.

"Yeah fucking right you don't know anything about it! You left that meeting before anybody else, it had to have been you!"

He shook his head vigorously. _This is bad…I can't get to my sylladex with my arms splayed out like this, and if Dirk just takes out his—_

There was the dull sound of metal grinding on metal as Dirk's katana appeared out of thin air. "Everyone else seems _so convinced_ that you're not the murderer. But we know the truth, don't we? We know that you're the one going around offing people like it's some sort of sick _game."_

Dirk pointed the blade of the katana at him threateningly, and Karkat writhed in response. _I have to get free._

"Well," Dirk continued, "that's not going to be a problem for much longer." The blade of the katana swung down, pressing with the lightest pressure to the flesh of Karkat's wrist. "Someone has to make sure you don't go around murdering people—and if I take away your hands, you won't be able to hurt a fly."

Now he really did begin to struggle, crying out against the human's palm and fighting to lift his arm away from the blade. But a bony knee was pinning him at the forearm, and the other was locked firmly at the other side of his waist, and he was completely helpless to resist as that blade drew the smallest line of blood from his wrist.

"Stop squirming!" Dirk hissed. "I want this to be a clean cut!"

His eyes burned as he fought with all his strength, realizing with grim horror that there was nothing he could do. _The crazy fuckass is really going to do it. He's going to…to cut off my hands._ The burning in his eyes intensified as he let out a muffled wail, praying for John to wake up or for Dave to miraculously appear out of nowhere.

But neither of those things happened. And what saved Karkat was the last thing he would have expected.

 _"Hey, meanie! Get your paws off of Karkitty!"_

He blinked, unsure he'd really heard it. But what was _really_ strange was the fact that Dirk appeared to hear it too. He raised his head, looking around in confusion.

 _"I said get off him right meow!"_

Dirk threw a look over his shoulder. "Jake! You hear that?"

Karkat blinked. _Jake? Where…?_

For a moment, there was nothing. Then a familiar voice hissed back, "Yeah, I heard it. But I can't see—agh!"

There was the sound of a scuffle, then Jake's body struck the ground harshly. He'd been hiding in a tree, it seemed, and was now sprawled out on his back, gasping pathetically at the sky.

"Jake!" Dirk cried, his grip loosening—and that loose grip gave Karkat just the opening he needed to fling the human off of him, throwing him to the side with a low snarl. The troll scrabbled to his feet, immediately snatching his sickles out of his sylladex and preparing for a fight.

But the fight was already over.

As Karkat watched in awe, a blur of olive green came out of nowhere, knocking Dirk to the ground with a snarl. A set of vicious claws raked across the human's cheek, and Dirk cried out as the skin split. "What the _fuck?"_

Karkat stepped forward, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. One of his hallucinations…but _was_ that thing a hallucination? How could a hallucination physically assault someone?

"Jake!" Dirk was roaring, wrestling with the olive blur. "Shoot him! Shoot him now!"

 _That's not a him,_ Karkat recognized, but that thought was quickly shaken out of his head as several shots rang out, and the blur recoiled and fled with a yelp. It vanished into the forest, leaves rustling, and left no trace it had ever been there save for the gashes on Dirk's cheek.

Dirk staggered to his feet and raised his katana in front of him. "You fucking coward! Scratching me and running off!"

Karkat jolted as he realized that Dirk was talking to _him._ "Wait, I wasn't the one—"

"You're the only troll here; of course it was you! Raking your fucking claws down my face like it's not a gorgeous fucking work of art!"

 _He…he didn't see that thing! He thinks I'm the one that leapt on him! How could he possibly think I'd have the strength or speed to—?_

"That's it, dude, you are _done for!"_ Dirk slipped into fighting stance, snapping, "Jake, you're helping me take him out!"

Jake immediately looked nervous. "Actually, I'm pretty sure I saw something kind of olive-colored—"

"Just _shoot_ him!"

"I can't kill Karkat!" Jake gasped. "And besides, these are rubber bullets! I'm only supposed to _hold off_ John and Dave, not kill anyone!"

Dirk snarled. "Useless!" Then he lunged forward, sword held aloft, and Karkat saw his life flash before his eyes as he raised his sickles to catch the blow and deflect it into the ground. The next blow ended the same way, and the next, with Dirk swinging like a madman for his wrists and Karkat shoving each swing into the earth, no matter how badly it strained the still-healing wounds at his sides.

"That's it," Dirk snarled, and he vanished in a flash.

 _What…?_

"Karkat, duck!"

He turned towards the voice and caught just a moment of Dirk attempting to slice into his upper arm before a gust of wind flattened both of them. And then John was there, standing a few feet away with both arms outstretched and the power of the breeze at his fingertips.

"What the—?" Dirk staggered to his feet, only for John to blast him again, then again when he tried to get up a few moments later.

"Stay down!" John insisted, voice only shaking slightly. Then he looked to Karkat, and his eyes were wide and concerned as he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he ground out, getting to his feet and stepping gingerly away from Dirk. He decided to leave out the part where one of his hallucinations had _physically injured_ Dirk Strider, and dragged Jake English right out of a tree. "It's this fuckass you should be worried about."

John turned his attention back on Dirk. "Were you trying to kill him?" he asked sharply. "Taking preemptive action to stop the next murder?"

"There's already _been_ another murder!" Dirk snarled. "I found a body outside my house after the meeting, and it had to have been Karkat!"

John blinked. "Already another murder? And you didn't tell anyone? You just…just _went after Karkat?"_

"It was obviously him, and none of you were going to do anything!"

John stepped back, stunned. "You…you were going to kill him!"

"No," Karkat broke in, "he was just trying to chop off my fucking hands. No big deal."

John gasped. "You…"

"It would have stopped the murders," Dirk growled.

John just stared, expression horrifyingly calm as the information sunk in. Then he spoke, and his tone was soft and dangerous. "Dirk. Take Jake and leave this place immediately, or I will do to you what you threatened to do to my…" And here he trailed off, searching for the right word. "…my _friend."_

Dirk sneered. But even he seemed to know when he was beaten, and he fought his way to his feet and grabbed Jake before flash stepping away.

Then they were alone.

"Un-fucking-believable," Karkat grumbled, pressing his hand to where Dirk's sword had dug into his wrist. The cut wasn't deep, and it had already stopped bleeding, but it still stung.

"You could say that again." John flew over to him, and before Karkat knew what was happening, he was being pulled into a crushing hug. "You _idiot—_ what were you doing, going out here on your own?"

"I…" How was he supposed to tell John that one of his hallucinations had sent him into a trance and lured him outside?

John sighed, seeing how shaken up he was. "Okay…okay, let's calm down…how about we go inside and talk this out?"

He agreed with a mute nod of the head.

John ushered him inside, moving around to the front door so they didn't have to climb through the window. "Now…where do you want to talk?"

He questioned himself for a moment. Hesitated. But then the words were falling from his lips, and nothing had ever felt quite so right.

"The pile. Let's talk in the pile."


	9. Karkat: Lose Your Shit

**Just as a warning, there are some hints of noncon in this chapter. Nothing actually happens, though, so don't worry!**

 **Chapter 9:** **Karkat: Lose Your Shit**

* * *

"Well…" Karkat looked anywhere but at John, feeling slightly uncomfortable with their current situation. He'd led John to the pile of blankets and clothing in his relaxation block and plopped him down on top of it purposefully, falling beside him with a contented huff. At the time, it had felt right—but now he was feeling slightly uneasy, just because John had _no idea_ what having a feelings jam even really meant for trolls, and didn't realize that he was filling a quadrant.

"Well?" John echoed.

Karkat fidgeted. "Sorry…this is about to sound really fucking crazy."

"I can deal with crazy."

"Right…" He took a deep breath. "Well, to cut a long story short, one of my _hallucinations_ physically harmed Dirk."

John blinked. "What?"

"I mean it. I was hearing voices in my room like some sort of fucking lunatic—voices that sounded just like two of my dead friends, mind you—and then they just sort of put me in a trance and lured me outside, and Dirk attacked me. He was about half a second from chopping off one of my hands, but a figment of my own twisted think pan leapt out at him and scratched him, then dragged Jake out of a tree."

He stared. "Um…"

"Yeah, it sounds fucking crazy. I know. But I _saw_ it, and _I_ sure as hell didn't scratch Dirk, but there are still scratches across his cheek."

"Well…" John hesitated, pillowing his head atop one arm and stretching the other one out to rest just above Karkat's head. "Karkat, hallucinations can't do anything physically. They can make you _think_ they're affecting your physical environment, but that's about it…and I _saw_ the scratches on Dirk's cheek, and there's no way _I_ was hallucinating, so it _couldn't_ have been a figment of your mind."

"But it had to have been!" Karkat protested. "The person I saw attack Dirk is _dead,_ so there's no way she could be there!"

John frowned thoughtfully. "Then…I hate to suggest this, but is it possible that your condition has deteriorated to the point where you're doing things and imagining that _someone else_ is doing them?"

"What?"

"I mean…is it possible that _you_ scratched Dirk and convinced yourself that you saw one of your hallucinations do it instead?"

He stared. "That is the most fucking _ridiculous_ thing I have ever heard in my life."

John held up his hands defensively. "Well, I'm not sure what else to think! You've made it clear that it has to be a hallucination, and hallucinations can't physically harm people, so I'm not sure what could have happened other than that!"

The troll shook his head. "I don't care how fucked up my think pan is right now, there's no way it's _that_ messed up. There has to be a better explanation!"

"I don't know what it is," John said. "I'm sorry, Karkat, but that's really all I can think of." He reached out with his free hand and trailed his fingertips down his shoulder. "God, this is so messed up…I don't know what to do…"

"You're doing fine," Karkat grumbled.

"But…this whole situation is so terrible! You're seeing things, and it just keeps getting worse, and Rose hasn't been making any progress on the recuperacoons since the murders started, and those horrid murders are just increasing in number, and…!"

"You're doing fine," the troll repeated, returning John's touch with one of his own. "Everything will be fine." _I hope._

John didn't look reassured. "I think I'm going to go back to Rose in the morning…do you feel safe with Dave coming over here to make sure you're okay while I'm gone?"

He tensed. He'd just told Dave that he didn't want to see him until he had his head on straight, but…he would never want to inconvenience John… "Yeah, that's fine."

"You're sure he won't attack you, and you won't attack him?"

"I'm certain."

John smiled. "Okay, good…then I'll head off in the morning, and I promise I won't take long."

Karkat nodded. Exhaustion was already beginning to set in after such an intense night, and he found himself nodding off despite himself.

"Sleepy?" John teased, poking him in the arm that hadn't been sliced up.

Karkat just grumbled, swatting his hand away. "Leave me alone, fuckass."

"You don't want to go to bed?"

"I'm perfectly fine here, so leave me the fuck alone!"

John giggled. "Okay, okay! I'll be right here when you wake up."

He knew he would.

†††

 _"I'm sorry, Karkat…I'm really sorry!"_

 _He fidgeted. He was so tired…his eyes wouldn't stay open._

 _"We don't want to hurt anyone. We don't want to krill anyone! I'm shore that if we were really, physically there, then none of this would be happening…"_

 _The voice was so familiar…so soft…_

 _"We just keep losing control! One minute we're fine, and the next we're just…well, we're not ourselves. Only you can sea us now, but I'm shore that as we grow stronger the others will begin to sea us as well. Then they'll know that you aren't crazy. Nepeta's already so strong! She attacked Dirk and actually managed to hurt him! The rest of us have done horrible things, though…we really do lose control, Karkat! We don't mean to! I didn't mean to hurt him! Something grabbed control of my head and made me krill him!"_

 _So familiar…he thought he could almost remember who she was._

 _She sniffed. "The game is so cruel, Karkat…I really thought you'd won! But I should have known that it would throw one last cruel decision at you. Even now, even in your new universe, Sgrub haunts us!"_

 _Hands soothed across his chest, and he could feel webbing between the fingers._

 _"Sollux isn't here. Neither is Vriska or Aradia. Do you know what happened them, Karkat? I miss Sollux…"_

 _He managed a groan. His eyelids felt so heavy… "Fef…" he managed, voice a low croak. "F-Feferi…"_

 _"That's it," she whispered. "You've got it!"_

 _"B-but how…you died! The dream bubbles are gone!"_

 _She shushed him. "Yes, the dream bubbles were destroyed. But that doesn't mean_ we _were."_

 _"The b-black hole…"_

 _"A gateway. Not a death sentence."_

 _A gateway?_

 _There was a sharp jolt, and Karkat's entire world shook. "Oh dear," Feferi murmured, "it looks like it's time to go. We'll sea you soon, Karkat—I'm shore of it!"_

 _Then the world jolted just one more time, and Karkat's world went even darker than it already was._

†††

"There was a fourth murder," was the first thing out of Rose's mouth when John went to see her the next day. "It happened this morning. Another dersite, a female this time, was found with a clean blast straight through her chest. It looks like a beam of plasma cut straight through her."

"A fourth…" John whispered, stunned. "And she was killed by some kind of plasma-based weapon?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"But…none of us use a plasma weapon! That's breaking pattern!"

Rose nodded. "It does appear that way. The first murder looked like Karkat. The second like Jane. The third, as you described last night after Karkat fell asleep, appeared as though it could have been anyone. And now the fourth has no real suspect."

"Seriously," John murmured, shaking his head in bewilderment. "Who uses a weapon that shoots plasma?"

Kanaya cleared her throat softly. "Actually, one of the former members of my game session used a plasma-based weapon."

"Eridan Ampora," Rose recalled. "Yes, I remember you telling me about him—but he's dead, so there's no chance that he was the murderer."

Kanaya nodded. "Yes, of course you're correct. I simply found it interesting."

"Indeed." Rose turned her gaze back on John. "The important thing is, this is the fourth murder that has occurred, and we still have no lead. Dirk believes that it was Karkat, and from what you said it seems that he's proven that he is willing to attack him in order to dispose of the threat—but from what you just told me, you were _with_ Karkat at the time of death. It couldn't have been him, even if he had a plasma weapon on hand."

John nodded. "Yeah, and I don't think Karkat's in any condition to fight anyway. He told me that he's been hearing the voices of his dead friends more and more often, and he even saw one of them attack Dirk."

"Really?" Rose cocked her head. "Did he see the hallucination have any kind of physical effect on Dirk?"

"Yeah, he's dead convinced that it scratched him. And _I_ sawthe scratches too; they were really there."

Rose's brows drew together in concern. "I see…this is becoming more and more serious, then. He still can't sleep?"

"He's been a bit better, but he always wakes up screaming."

"Has he begun to hurt himself?"

"What? No, of course not, not other than when he accidentally scratched himself in his sleep! Do you…think he'll really start to hurt himself?"

She looked away. "If this continues, having already reached the point where he's imagining his hallucinations having a physical effect on his environment and those around him, I believe that he will eventually turn on himself. But never fear—that's why you're there, to make sure he can't harm himself too badly. And Dave will help you as well. He's with Karkat now, I assume?"

"Yeah, I asked him to watch over him until I got back. I sure hope they're okay…"

"I'm sure Dave can handle him," Rose said gently. "Now, let's discuss how we're going to deal with these murders."

†††

"Dirk tried to cut off your hands?" Dave asked, incredulous.

The troll shrugged. "Yeah, but John stopped him in time. Chased him off with a massive blast of wind."

He shook his head, stunned. "Fuck, I…I can't believe he would try to do that! I expected him to try something at some point, but _chopping off your_ _hands_ and just leaving you to bleed out…" He shuddered. "It's horrific."

"John chased him off," Karkat reminded him. "He didn't really hurt me, but it was fucking terrifying."

"Yeah…I've been on the wrong side of that katana far too many times." He recalled the countless scars crisscrossing his chest and back, feeling the ghost of a cool blade carving them into his flesh whenever he was just a little too slow to dodge a swing. "Still, though—that's really goddamn drastic. Kind of unbelievable."

"Well, I suppose there have been too many murders," Karkat said. "Dirk wanted to take my hands off to protect all of us, that's all. He's a fucking jerk, but I know where he's coming from."

"Doesn't really excuse him," Dave grumbled, vowing to smack some sense into his asshole of a relative the next time he saw him.

"No, of course it doesn't." Karkat hugged his knees to his chest, staring at the ground with something akin to worry.

"…Karkles? You doing okay there, dude?"

He shrugged. "John talked to you, didn't he? My hallucinations are getting worse."

Dave recalled the conversation he'd had with John only a few hours prior. He'd been told everything about the previous night, including Karkat's insistence that one of his hallucinations had clawed Dirk's cheek. "Yeah, he said as much." He glanced at Karkat subtly from behind his shades, observing the tight lines of his body. "So…are you any closer to letting me help you out?"

The troll tensed just slightly. "I just need more time."

He nodded immediately, backing off. Now that he'd finally started to put aside his fears of dragging Karkat down with him, he desperately wanted to repair the mess he'd made of their relationship. _When will you let me help you?_

"But…"

He looked up.

"…If you want to sit a little closer, that wouldn't be the worst fucking thing in the world."

Dave's eyes lit up—not that Karkat knew that, not from behind his newly repaired shades. "If that's what you want, dude." And then he was scooting over, not quite sure how close _closer_ was. He eyed Karkat, waiting for a sign that he was getting too close. He saw nothing, though, and so he closed the final few inches between them and pressed his side to Karkat's, throwing an arm around his shoulders.

The troll said nothing. He just crouched there, knees still drawn up to his chest, and stared blankly ahead of him. He was stiff as a board, the tensest Dave had ever seen him—and even when he tilted his head and pressed it into the soft red material of Dave's shirt, he felt as if he were about to burst from the strain of locking his muscles in place.

"It's going to be okay," Dave murmured, carding his fingers through Karkat's hair. He carefully avoided the nubby horns, having been snarled at several times for getting too close back when they were on the meteor. _This_ was familiar, though. This was something he'd done with Karkat countless times, holding him close or dozing with his head in his lap while a movie droned in the background. If he just closed his eyes, pressed his chin to the top of Karkat's head, he could almost imagine that they were back on the meteor, before everything had gone to hell and Dave had forced himself to leave the troll behind in his selfish attempt at redemption.

Karkat hummed, fingers twisting into the front of his shirt. "Reminds me of the meteor," he muttered, voicing Dave's thoughts. "Like none of this shit ever happened."

"Dude, don't ruin the moment with your foul mouth," Dave joked, ruffling his hair.

"Fuck off, Strider." But there was no venom behind it, and the troll's body was beginning to relax bit by bit.

He could work with this. If Karkat was willing to let him this close already, he thought he could work with it.

Karkat yawned and pressed closer, and his heart melted then and there.

†††

He never should have let himself doze off on Dave's shoulder.

 _"Some of us want to kill you. To kill_ all _of you."_

 _Karkat shook his head to get rid of the voice, scrambling towards the edge of the cliff as a shadowy figure approached him. The voice wasn't coming from the figure, he realized—it was coming from somewhere above him, or behind him, or_ anywhere _but in front of him._

 _"Most of us are in our right minds some of the time, at least."_

 _The figure drew closer, club in hand._

 _"But one of us is not."_

 _A low growl sounded, and already Karkat felt his knees going weak._

 _"One of us is nothing but violent without his poison of choice."_

 _The growl deepened._

 _"You replaced him, Karkat."_

 _And deepened more._

 _"He rejected you, and then you replaced him."_

 _And deepened even more, until it was a deafening rumble that nearly had him on his knees._

 _"He's not pleased about this."_

 _He was far too close now, and Karkat couldn't move. The club glistened with all the colors of the rainbow as its wielder raised it above his head, ready to bash his skull in._

 _"There is exactly one way you will be able to end this."_

 _He shrank back, heels hanging just slightly off the edge of the cliff. There was nowhere left to go—and when he looked behind him, he saw that the drop was at least a hundred feet into a dark ocean dappled with jagged rocks cutting up menacingly through the water._

 _"When the time comes, there will be one way and one way only."_

 _The growl turned into a roar._

 _"You will know what to do."_

†††

Karkat awoke from the strange dream slowly, frowning into darkness as he realized that he had no idea what time it was or where he was. He felt blindly for Dave and found that the blond was no longer slumped over him. In fact, it seemed like he just wasn't there at _all_. Maybe he'd left and decided not to wake him on the way out.

The troll ran his fingertips across the thing he was lying on. It was the couch, he realized. He was still in the middle of the thing, though he'd been laid out on his back with one of the blankets from the pile thrown across him somewhat sloppily. The whole situation reeked of Strider, and he couldn't resist the tiniest of smirks as he thought of Dave struggling to disentangle himself and cover him in a blanket without disturbing his rest.

He sat up, the blanket falling to his lap. It was dark. All the lights had been turned off, and the sky looked almost black from what little he could see through the windows. John must have come home, then, and Dave had left. But where was John?

As if on cue, he heard someone rustling in the darkness behind him.

"John?" he called out softly, "is that you?"

The rustling grew closer, footsteps falling heavily on the wooden flooring. Hot breath rolled across the back of his neck, and he shivered at the feel of it.

"John? What are you doing?"

The puffs of breath grew longer, and Karkat heard the couch squeak in protest as two hands closed on the backrest and squeezed _hard_.

"D-Dave…?" he tried, realizing that John wasn't quite strong enough to be making the couch groan like that. "Are you fucking with me right now?"

Silence. Then the sound of fabric ripping lightly.

In that moment, Karkat realized with abrupt clarity that he was in danger.

He threw himself out of the way an instant before something whistled over his head and tore deep gouges into the couch. At least, he _assumed_ that was what had happened—the room was so dark, he could barely see anything. He could only hear the rustling and the tearing of fabric. "H-hey!" he gasped out. "That's my fucking couch, you—!"

Something snarled.

 _Oh no…another hallucination?_

Then he caught sight of those horribly familiar indigo eyes, and he _knew_ that he had to be right. Another hallucination was after him.

He ducked again, hearing the swipe rustling through the air to his right. _Have to get to the light switch…trolls' eyes can see in the dark better than most, but there's_ no _light in here!_

He scrambled for the far wall where he knew the light switch was waiting. He dove for it, wincing as another swipe passed just to the right of his shoulder, and flicked the thing up.

Light flooded the room, and…

Karkat had to bite back a gasp. Until now, he'd seen only blurred forms and caught little snippets of voices. But now, standing in the middle of his living room, was a very clear and very _dangerous_ figment that just so happened to look exactly like Gamzee Makara.

Gamzee paused when the light was turned on, looking up at the fixture with awe. "Motherfucking miracles," he breathed, a dopey grin on his face. Then that grin turned on Karkat, and he drawled, "Long time no see, Karbro."

"G-Gamzee…" Karkat whispered, because his voice sounded so _real,_ sounded different than before,and he was certain that he could see slashes in the couch where the troll's nails had cut into the fabric.

"Sup, my tiny friend?"

It was then that he realized he'd broken the one rule he'd been upholding since the start of this whole mess— _don't acknowledge the existence of the figments._ "Fuck! You're not real, I _know_ you're not real!"

"Aww, now that's just _all_ up and hurting my feelings!" Gamzee twirled a club in one hand, stalking closer as Karkat tried to put the couch between them as some form of protection. "You'd better be apologizing for that right fucking now, motherfucker, or I'm about to be _right_ the fuck up in your face."

"You're not fucking real," Karkat hissed, but he couldn't take his eyes off him. The other troll was moving fluidly, smoothly, club swaying hypnotically as he swayed from side to side.

"Come on, Karbro, you just _gotta_ feel all these motherfucking miracles!"

 _"Not real not real not real…"_

Gamzee cleared the room in a few large strides, and Karkat found himself shrinking back and staring up at his former moirail in horror. He stared into those indigo eyes, and all he could see was the death and destruction that he'd wrought on the meteor. _You've killed so many of us, in so many different timelines…_

"How's this for _real_ , Karbro?"

It was the last thing he heard before Gamzee was raking his claws across the side of his face, taking him to the ground, and beginning the one of the most frantic struggles of his life. Gamzee was strong, far stronger than him, but he refused to let himself be taken down so easily. He bit, clawed, scratched, kicked, did _everything_ he could to stop Gamzee from flaying him alive.

 _This isn't a hallucination. There's no way this is a hallucination._

As if in agreement, Karkat felt Gamzee's palm smash down in the middle of his chest, stealing his breath momentarily and putting tremendous pressure on his sensitive gill slits. _No fucking way this is all in my think pan. No fucking way a hallucination could be doing this to me._

"Are you down for putting a little motherfucking faith in me now, best friend?"

He choked out a noise that could either have been an agreement or a protest. Gamzee went for his chest, claws out and ready to slash away at his skin, and Karkat flailed his own claws in an attempt to put out his assailant's eyes. He was far too short, though, arms not long enough to reach, and Gamzee laughed down at him gleefully. "Think I'm gonna start breaking your fingers one by one. Sound good, Karbro?"

He hissed out a pained breath as Gamzee's body settled across his, a powerful hand grasping one wrist while the other grasped his index finger between two of his own. Karkat thrashed furiously beneath him, fighting against the natural strength all highbloods were graced with. He moved to scream for John, but Gamzee seemed to have the same thought, and jabbed him solidly in the center of his chest to take his breath away for a second time. Karkat's mouth hung open as he choked and gasped for air, the fight momentarily drained right out of him, and Gamzee took the opportunity to snap his index finger backwards.

White-hot pain seared through him, but he couldn't scream. Breath still evaded him, and he could do nothing but choked out agonized gasps as Gamzee smiled down at him dreamily. "Aww, now isn't that all kinds of beautiful? You're a motherfucking miracle, Karbro, gasping at me all in pain and shit. We're really developing the most beautiful of relationships here, don't you think?"

 _Relationship? Wait…fuck, is Gamzee trying to…?_

His thoughts ended in a brilliant flash of agony as another one of his fingers was snapped. This time he managed a wail, weak though it was, and he could only pray that John heard him from wherever he was in the hive.

"You gonna keep singing for me, my little miracle?" Another finger was taken between his grasp, teasing at bending it back but not actually moving. "You motherfucking owe me this, motherfucker. Replacing me with that fleshy human."

"Y-you dumped me," he managed, fighting for breath. "S-said you d-didn't need me anymore…"

Gamzee shoved his face right up next to his, face paint outlining his scars hideously. "Well I was motherfucking wrong about that, wasn't I? But you just went and replaced me with a human, and I've been all over here feeling _all_ sorts of blue about the way you ran off on me."

"G-Gamz—!"

"It's no big deal, Karbro. You can't be down with the dark carnival if you're not willing to forgive a brother for his transgressions."

He gasped as Gamzee bent that third finger to its breaking point.

"Now there's one way that you can up and repent for all this motherfucking infidelity to your palebro."

He had a really, _really_ bad feeling about this.

"If I can't be having you in the pale quadrant, then I guess I could be settling for something else."

Oh yeah, this was fucking _bad._

"What do you say, Karbro? Wanna be my dark motherfucking miracle?"

His stomach lurched. He felt nauseous. "Gamzee, no—!"

And there it was. That low growl, sinking into his body and disabling his will to fight back. It was soft, though, barely audible—he still had a chance to stop this.

"Gamzee," he tried, forcing his lips to form the right words. "T-this isn't right…" _No proper kismesis would do this to their partner!_

"And I think it's motherfucking _perfect_ , my little miracle." He bowed his head, lips in uncomfortable proximity to Karkat's neck. He had such vicious fangs…

He tried to struggle, thrashing against Gamzee with the strength he had left. Then, realizing with horror that he was no match for the highblood, his thoughts turned in the opposite direction.

 _I need to run. Find John. I'm not strong enough to beat him, never have been._

Gamzee wasn't having it, though. He just smirked, teeth a hideous white slash across his dark face, and said, "Now just hold yourself still, and I can show you all kinds of miracles."

He winced as Gamzee's claws raked down his shoulders, ripping his shirt and drawing blood. _No…no…no! I won't let this happen!_ _I will not be his kismesis!_

Gamzee purred against his neck, sharp teeth grazing the skin. The growl had stopped, and Karkat felt his strength returning in a flood.

Sensing power slowly beginning to creep back into his limbs, he prepared himself to strike. With every scrap of strength left in his body, Karkat coiled in on himself like a snake poised to strike. Then he lashed out, wrenching the hand _without_ broken fingers free and going for Gamzee's horns.

Highbloods didn't have as strong a submission reflex. And so when Karkat closed his hand around one of Gamzee's horns and pressed into the sensitive flesh at the base, it was only just enough to weaken the troll slightly. _Just_ slightly, but it was enough. Karkat barely managed to throw Gamzee off him with his remaining strength—but unfortunately that action just made Gamzee tighten his grip on his fingers, and the remaining bones gave way with a sickening snap. This time, there was nothing to stop Karkat from screaming.

Something thudded upstairs. _John!_

"Oh…" Gamzee groaned, trying to regain his fine motor functions. "Now that was just all kinds of mean!"

Karkat scrabbled to his feet, cradling his ruined hand to his chest. His breath was coming too fast, entire body shaking with a mixture of adrenaline and pure terror—but even that flood of energy wasn't enough to escape Gamzee when he reached out, dragging ten sharp lines down his chest as he struggled to turn and dash for where his housemate was resting. His chest was gouged open. Bleeding. _John. Have to get to John._

Gamzee roared as he scrambled up the stairs, heading to John's room. He could only pray that the human was there.

Thankfully, he was.

"Karkat?" John asked blearily as he emerged from his room, no doubt at the sound of the scream. Then all that bleariness vanished and he gasped, seeing the way the troll was holding himself. "Karkat! Oh my god, what—?"

 _No time!_ "Gamzee is in the house!" Karkat burst out. "He's in the house, he attacked me, I barely escaped before he managed to—!"

A haunting laugh sounded from the stairs. The wood creaked as heavy steps ascended, and Karkat nearly sobbed as he realized that the juggalo was already there. "Kill him, kill him, kill him!" he panicked, ducking behind John and facing the human towards the door. He'd lost it, he knew he was acting insane, but he couldn't help it. Gamzee was _right there,_ he could hear him climbing the stairs, and _oh gog,_ they were about to die, it was the meteor all over again…

"Someone's in the house?" John asked in alarm. "Did they do this to you?"

"He's climbing the stairs!" Karkat cried out, grasping John by the shoulders. "Fucking _kill him!"_

John jumped, looking truly alarmed. "Okay, calm down! I'll take care of this, you stay here!" The human ran for the door, fluorescent hammer held aloft before him, and vanished into darkness.

Karkat waited with bated breath for John to scream, for Gamzee to smash him into the ground. But the longer he waited without hearing even a single scream, the more he began to think that maybe, just maybe, Gamzee had given up and left. Maybe he was afraid of John?

"Karkat!" John called, reappearing in the doorway. His eyes were still wide, but now they were filled with confusion rather than fear. "Karkat, there's no one in the house. Were you hallucinating again?"

"But…but the relaxation block is completely wrecked!" He recalled the slashed couch, the blood-splattered walls, the tossed tables.

John approached him tentatively, hands held out in an attempt at placating him. "Karkat, the living room is fine. It looks exactly the same way it did when I came in."

He choked out a gasp. "N-no…that's impossible! I know it was destroyed, I saw it! I saw Gamzee!"

John's expression softened. "Oh, Karkat…"

"He attacked me! He _broke my fucking fingers_ , clawed my chest open!"

"Broke your fingers?" John echoed with a gasp. "Karkat, let me see your hands!"

He shoved out his arm obediently, hissing as the broken bones shifted against each other. At least _that_ hadn't been a hallucination. But if Gamzee hadn't really been there, if he'd never touched the relaxation block…then how were his fingers still broken? How could he feel his chest still dripping with blood? How were the wounds at his sides, reopened by the struggle, still oozing scarlet? How could he feel the claw marks across his cheeks? _How had he been hurt?_

"Oh, god…" John grasped his wrist gingerly, staring in horror at the mangled fingers. "Jane," he decided after a moment of speechlessness. "I'm taking you to the lab, and we'll call Jane there to help you. Your chest—you said your chest was clawed up?"

Karkat lifted his shirt with his good hand, never mind revealing the existence of his gills, and John sucked in a sharp breath as he saw the long, deep marks gouged into his flesh.

"Okay…okay, don't panic…you're going to be fine. Come on, Karkat, we'll get you help."

He flinched as John's arm settled around his waist, leading him for the door. As they descended the stairs, he kept expecting to see Gamzee lurking around a corner, waiting to slit his throat with his vicious claws, to hold him down and tear his heart out and paint murals in his blood. When they entered the relaxation block, he had to blink several times to make sure he wasn't seeing things—because John was _right._

The block was untouched.

As if no one had ever been there.

"Don't look," John whispered, lips ghosting over his ear. "Just close your eyes, Karkat…close your eyes and I'll keep you safe."


	10. Rose: Call for Help

...And now I'm mad that this site won't display greater than/less than symbols for Terezi's horns whenever she makes faces in pesterlog conversations. Oh well, most people read this over on AO3 anyway.

 **Chapter 10:** **Rose: Call for Help**

* * *

"John!" Rose called out, tone sharp and determined. "Over here, I've already got a cot set up for you!"

John gave a desperate nod as he carried an unconscious Karkat into the room, hurrying over to where Rose was pointing and gently placing the troll onto the cot. He kept hold of Karkat's wrist, making sure the broken fingers didn't mash into the mattress.

"Kanaya," Rose called, "please message Jane and tell her to hurry."

Kanaya nodded. "I'm on it."

"Good." Rose approached Karkat, looking down at him in concern. "What on earth happened to him? All you told me in that message was that he needed help, but you were rather unspecific." She eyed his hand. "He's broken his fingers, I see."

"Kinda," John agreed, stricken. "Oh Rose, it was awful! Karkat was asleep on the couch when I got home, so I just left him there and went to sleep in my own room—but a while later I heard a scream, and when I got up Karkat was staggering into my room and insisting that someone was in the house, and had attacked him! He said that they'd clawed at his chest and snapped his fingers and wrecked the living room, and he was so shaken up…but when I went downstairs to check it out, everything was right as I'd left it! There was no sign that someone was in the house, and Karkat fell unconscious a few minutes after I started leading him here, so I couldn't get much more information out of him."

Rose's eyes widened. "Another hallucination?"

"It sounds like it, but…oh god, Rose, his fingers! And his chest!"

She took a good look at his broken fingers, then dipped her gaze to where sickly red blood was soaking through the black fabric of his shirt. "This is quite intense, I agree…"

"That's one word for it," John said with a shake of his head.

"John…you do realize what this means, don't you?"

He winced. He did, but he didn't want to talk about it.

"If Karkat's hallucinations have already progressed to this point, then things are much more serious than we feared. If it's true that this _was_ caused by a hallucination, then it means that he _snapped his own fingers, clawed his own chest open,_ and convinced himself that someone else did it to him."

He swallowed hard. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. "Yeah, I…I figured that out."

Rose fixed him with a level stare. "This is _very_ serious. If he's begun to hurt himself, then extensive measures will have to be taken. We may have to lock him up in order to make sure there's not a repeat incident."

" _Lock_ him—?"

"Restraints may also be in order."

John nearly choked. "No, you can't do that to him! Rose, please, there must be another way!"

"If there is, I do not know of it. We are not yet prepared to alchemize the device that will allow him to regain his sleep—and at this point, I am not entirely convinced that lack of sleep is the sole cause. Something else may be going on here, something we don't understand."

"But—"

The door to the lab burst open, and two figures scrambled into the room with equal fervor.

"John!" the first person cried out, blond hair sticking up at odd angles, shades crooked on the bridge of his nose. "Is he okay?"

John shook his head helplessly, gesturing to Karkat with his free hand. "Not right now, but I think he will be after Jane heals him." He looked to Jane, the second person, and begged, "Please, you have to help him!"

Jane nodded, flying over to him in a heartbeat, Dave hot on her heels.

"Oh my goodness!" Jane gasped out upon seeing Karkat's condition. "What happened to him?"

"Just heal him!" John insisted, grip tightening on Karkat's wrist. "He's in pain!"

Jane's eyes went wide and she nodded, terrified. Then her hands were settling over Karkat's chest, healing magic flooding into him. Dave shifted his weight from one foot to another nervously as John fidgeted in much the same way, both watching as Jane worked.

First, the lingering swelling around his eye went down. Then the gashes in his sides sealed up beneath his shirt, spitting out globs of partially coagulated blood as they did. Next his fingers were dealt with, the bones shifting back into place and mending as Karkat groaned weakly in his sleep. The magic took hold of him for only one second more to heal the various scratches and bruises he'd received in the fight, then it left him with a blinding flash.

John let out a whoosh of breath as the pain drained out of Karkat's face. The troll's whole body relaxed, going limp bit by bit, and soon he was sleeping with light but regular pulls of air into his lungs.

Jane, on the other hand, didn't seem relieved. She recoiled the instant all of Karkat's injuries were healed and clutched her hands to her chest, expression one of horror and confusion. "What's _wrong_ with him?" she managed, eyes locked on the form of the sleeping troll.

"What do you mean?" Dave snapped. He'd moved to Karkat's side the instant she moved away, and was resting a hand atop the troll's head. "You healed him, there shouldn't be anything _wrong_ with him!"

"Not physically," Jane protested. "It's…something _mentally._ The instant I started healing him I could…" She trailed off, waving her hands helplessly.

Rose dipped her head. "You could _feel_ it, couldn't you?"

She nodded wordlessly. "It's not physical, so there's nothing I can do to heal it, but…my magic just kind of _reflected_ off his brain, like there's something dark in there keeping me from touching it."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Dave growled.

"I imagine it has something to do with the hallucinations," Rose explained grimly. "Karkat's mind is a very dark place right now—and something is seriously wrong with him if his hallucinations are bringing him to physically harm himself." She looked to John, then Dave. "I wish to speak with him alone when he awakens. Perhaps I will be able to paint a clearer picture of his affliction and how it should be treated."

Dave bared his teeth. "He's not a test subject! You can't go around poking at his brain!"

"Just give me a _chance_ ," she insisted. "If I can just speak to him without interference, I'm sure I can glean some kind of understanding as to what's going on inside his head. I won't be overly invasive; I'll only ask as much as is necessary."

The Knight continued to glare, shoulders hunched defensively over Karkat's sleeping form. "I swear to god, Rose, if you're just doing this to play therapist—"

"I want him to recover just as much as you," was the cool response. "Please think of someone other than yourself for once!"

That made him pause. Dave looked to John. Then he flickered his gaze to Kanaya, then to Jane—and finally he deflated, saying, "Okay, fine…just don't _break_ him."

"I will endeavor not to."

"What about what you said earlier?" John pressed, jumping in before Rose could go off on a tangent. "The restraints, and the whole being locked up thing…?

Dave bristled. _"What?"_

Rose shot him a look of warning. "We don't have to discuss that ad nauseam until I've had the chance to speak with Karkat. Once I've done that, we can work out whether it's necessary and how we should go about protecting him from himself."

"You can't seriously be thinking about—!"

"If Karkat poses a danger to himself, then yes, I will take measures to make sure that he cannot bring further harm to himself."

"But—!"

"You saw him, did you not? When you first came in? You saw the way he'd mangled his own fingers, the way he'd torn into his own chest until muscle was exposed. Do you want him to continue to do such things to himself?"

Dave faltered. "No, but…"

"No buts," Rose said brusquely. "If you don't want him to hurt himself, and I deem it necessary, we will do what must be done. If you truly cared for him, you would agree."

Dave spluttered in a very uncool way, shades still askew as he tried to come up with a retort. But then he seemed to collect himself, and he took a step back with a shaky, "Yeah, I…yeah."

Despite his worry for Karkat, John couldn't help but feel a flicker of happiness to see Dave so adorably worried. _It seems like the two of them have started to work things out…good for them! Took them long enough._

Jane cleared her throat, making everyone jump. "Um…if all of you are okay with it, I think I should be going now. I can tell everyone what's going on if you want!"

"No," Rose said, "I don't think you should say anything. I'll send out a memo later. But you _are_ free to leave. Thank you for helping us."

"Yeah," John chimed in, echoed momentarily by Dave. "Thank you!"

Jane smiled sweetly. "Oh, it was nothing!" Then she was flying out of the room and vanishing behind the set of double doors, no doubt ready to go back to bed.

"Now," Rose said when she was gone. "John and Dave, I want you both to leave and get some rest."

"What?" John yelped. "You can't be serious!"

"Yeah," Dave agreed, "we should be here when he wakes up."

Rose shook her head. "No—when he wakes up, I need to speak with him before either of you have the chance to get your hands on him."

"But _why?"_

"His story will most likely be the most accurate immediately after he wakes, and I will _not_ have the two of you around to distract him when he's trying to tell me what happened."

"We should be there," Dave insisted, tone low and rough. "He trusts _us_ a hell of a lot more than he trusts you."

"I have no doubt of that. But this is how things must be." Rose pointed to the door. "And besides that, the two of you need to sleep. It is the middle of the night, and losing sleep over this won't help you."

"There's no way we'll be able to sleep after this!" John wailed. He shuddered at the thought of returning to Karkat's empty house, knowing that the troll had viciously mutilated himself in the living room not two hours prior. "I can't go back to that house, Rose, not while Karkat's here!"

"Then go to Dave's," she said. "The two of you might benefit from a good talk."

"But—!"

"No, John. Do it."

He glanced over at Dave uncertainly. He'd been so cruel to Dave the last time he'd seen him, chasing him off with the threat of attacking him if he ever saw him again. Would Dave even want him around anymore?

Dave seemed to sense his trepidation. "Don't worry about it, dude—I don't really want to be alone right now either, so you can shack up with me until Karkat's good as new."

"You're…okay with that?" He shuffled his feet nervously. "You can tell me to go away if you'd rather not—"

Dave groaned. "Dude, just stay at my place. We can chum it up just like old times and talk about that time you tried to blast my head off a few days ago. Sound good?"

He gulped. "Y-yeah…okay."

Dave rolled his eyes. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He followed his best friend (former best friend?) out of the room, casting one last glance at Karkat as he went.

 _Get well soon, Karkat…and come back home where you belong._

†††

 _"I warned you."_

 _Karkat opened his eyes blearily, staring at the hazy figure standing before him. He couldn't quite make out the details, but he thought that he could see the outline of fluttering wings._

 _"He hurt you, didn't he?"_

 _The figure drifted closer, wings a blur of movement, and Karkat felt cool fingers press to his right side. He opened his mouth to speak, but found himself unable to make a sound._

 _"It's okay, Karkat. You don't have long to wait now."_

 _Not long to wait? Not long to wait until what, exactly?_

 _"We will be with you soon enough."_

†††

Karkat winced as his world returned to him slowly, faint flickers of pain grasping at his fingers and sides. His entire body felt overly hot, and he recognized the lingering affects of Jane's healing magic. John must have gone for help, the dork.

"Karkat? Karkat, can you hear me?"

The grating female voice stabbed at his think pan unpleasantly. He groaned, turning his head to one side.

"Oh, excellent—Kanaya, would you please leave? And send John and Dave a message, if you will, letting them know that Karkat is conscious."

"Of course, Rose." Footsteps clacked lightly against the floor, and then there was the sound of a pair of double doors opening and swinging closed.

 _Rose and Kanaya? Then I must be in the lab._ He flexed his fingers hesitantly, still expecting pain despite knowing that he'd been healed. They were moving normally now, he noted, and there was no sign that he'd ever been attacked—even the slashes on his chest had been mended. It certainly didn't do him any favors, knowing that the one piece of evidence of Gamzee's attack had been erased.

"Open your eyes," Rose urged in a soft voice. "Now, Karkat. We need to exchange words before I can let you go anywhere."

He had to talk to the crazy psychoanalyst before he was allowed to go anywhere? No, surely John and Dave would bust him out if he just waited.

"John and Dave have agreed that this necessary, so they won't be coming to rescue you."

Fuck, she'd seen right through him. He was really going to have to do this, wasn't he?

"Now, the sooner you answer my questions the sooner we can decide what our next course of action should be. Are you willing to cooperate?"

He hesitated, weighing his options. _Shit, there's no way around this. I have to talk to her._ "Fine," he rasped, eyes opening slowly, then closing as they were assaulted by the bright light. "But give me a _few_ fucking minutes before you start blabbing my ear off, got it?"

Rose leaned back. She'd drug a seat up beside where he was laying (which was on some kind of cot they kept at the lab, he noticed), and was sitting beside him with a pencil and notepad on her lap.

"You look like one of those therapist characters from one of John's shitty movies," he sneered, eyeing the notepad. "Are you going to start asking me about my _feelings?"_

"If you're ready," she said coolly. "But I thought you wanted a few minutes first."

He snarled, struggling to push himself upright. His muscles were far stronger than they'd been the previous night, and he found with satisfaction that it was far easier to get himself up. Once he was sitting cross-legged, leaning his back against the pillows, he decided that it would be best to get this train wreck of a therapy session over with. He'd think about all of the horrible things that had happened the previous night _after_ he'd gotten Rose out of his hair.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Shoot."

She did. "Okay, then. I'll try to keep this quick. First of all, why don't you tell me what happened to you last night?"

…Or he would think about all of the horrible things _now._ "John told you, didn't he?" he snapped. "Why do I need to repeat it?"

"Humor me."

He bared his teeth, but knew he wouldn't be leaving until he obeyed. "Fucking _fine._ I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke up I felt someone breathing down my neck. I thought it was John or Dave, but when I realized that neither of them were in the room, I threw myself out of the way to avoid whoever it was. They swiped at me, I dodged, they tackled me to the ground and started breaking my fucking fingers. Then they clawed open my chest and threatened to…" And here he hesitated, not really wanting to tell Rose what Gamzee had tried to do. "Tried to _kill_ me," he amended, hoping his hesitation hadn't been too obvious. "I managed to subdue him long enough to run to John's room for help. After that, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, but John went down and said that no one was there. That's everything."

Rose hummed. "I see. And who was this hallucination, exactly? Did you recognize him?"

He glared down at his hands, lying limply in his lap. "Gamzee Makara," he forced out, hating the way the name tasted on his tongue.

"Gamzee," Rose echoed, scribbling down the name. "Makara. Another troll?"

He bit back a low growl. Rose _knew_ who Gamzee was, _knew_ what had happened to him—she was just playing dumb so that Karkat would have to say it. "Yeah, the worst fucking troll on the planet."

"I see. And what makes him the worst, would you say?"

 _You fucking know what makes him the worst!_ "He slaughtered my friends." His voice was flat, anger boiling beneath the surface.

"Ah. And which friends would those be?"

"I don't see why that's important!" he hissed.

"Just answer the question, Karkat."

"Nepeta," he ground out. "Nepeta and Equius, and he _tried_ to kill a hell of a lot more of us, but I managed to calm him down before he could on a murderous rampage."

"I see." Her pen moved across the paper rhythmically. "Now, why would Gamzee go after you? Did he say anything about his motives?"

"He said…" He hesitated, thinking back. "He said that I replaced him, even though _he's_ the one that ditched _me_ like a pathetic piece of garbage."

"How so?"

"He was my moirail for a good few months," he explained, hating Rose for making him say it. "But then he started to grow self-absorbed and distant, and he broke things off right when I needed him most."

"Interesting. How have you replaced him, then?"

Oh, no fucking way he was telling Rose about the strange, fucked up thing he had going with John. "No clue."

She frowned. "Karkat…"

"It's personal."

She fixed him with an even stare, no doubt hoping he'd crack. But then she sighed, seeming to understand his refusal to speak, and moved on. "Very well, then. We can come back to that later. For now, it's enough to know that he attacked you out of jealousy. Now, Karkat…do you understand that what you experienced wasn't real?"

He tensed. "I…"

"It was a hallucination. This is something you must understand if we are to start working towards recovery."

"But it felt so fucking _real,"_ he hissed, curling in on himself slightly. "He broke my fingers, how could it have been a hallucination?"

Her tone turned soft, comforting. "It wasn't real. You were the one that hurt yourself, I'm afraid, convincing yourself that someone else was the one doing it."

"What _possible_ motive could my think pan have for making up this shit?"

The pen tapped against the paper over and over again. "Why don't you tell me this: do you feel guilt for replacing Gamzee?"

"No!" Then he hesitated. _Did_ he feel guilt? He fucking _shouldn't,_ not after the juggalo had flat out ditched him and run off. "No, I'm not guilty at all."

"Are you quite certain? Because looking at this as an outsider, it looks like you are. If you felt guilt, that would explain why your mind created the figment of the friend you replaced and led him to harm you. It could be your mind's way of coping, of punishing yourself for something you believe is your fault. You could have been led to hurt yourself as some form of repentance."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" Karkat bit out. "I'll give you that your theory may be correct for Gamzee, but why the fuck would I be having hallucinations of _other_ people if this whole thing is just about my former moirail?"

Rose was silent. Then, "Other people? Who else have you seen?"

 _Fuck, I shouldn't have said anything._ "I saw Nepeta."

She clicked the end of her ballpoint pen. "Ah, yes, I remember John telling me about that. You saw her attack Dirk and drag Jake out of a tree, did you not?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"And was there anyone else?"

He thought for a moment. "Eridan," he decided, recalling the strange shape he'd seen twisting and twirling in the waves. "That's all I've seen while awake."

"Eridan and Nepeta," Rose repeated, scribbling the name down. "Why don't you tell me about Eridan first? He was a highblood, was he not?"

"A seadweller," he confirmed. "A real fucking jerk, too. Drove me up the wall." He sat there for a moment, guilt flooding him. "It was my fault he died."

"How so?"

"He didn't have a moirail. He was a fucking _highblood,_ too, he _needed_ a moirail. He came to me for help, wanted to talk to me…I think he was even making a pale advance on me, even if he didn't realize it himself, but I turned him away. And then he went crazy and killed someone."

"Who did he kill?"

"Feferi, and then he blinded Sollux. Almost killed Kanaya, too—and then she sawed him right the fuck in half."

She cringed. "Yes, I…I remember Kanaya mentioning that."

He smirked, but there was no amusement in it. "He did some awful things, but he wasn't a bad person. Not really. If I'd talked to him when I had the chance, he wouldn't have gone crazy. End of story."

Rose pressed pen to paper, seemingly preparing to write something down. But then she paused, pen thunking limply to the notepad, and let her arms fall to her lap. "You seem to feel a lot of guilt over this—over the death of apotential moirail. I can't help but notice that everyone you've described seeing so far has had some kind of pale attraction to you."

"Well that'll change real fucking quick, because I haven't told you about Nepeta yet," he snapped.

"Well then by all means, go on."

"Not much to say about her," he lied. "She was a crazy purrbeast troll. Not a violent bone in her body, not unless she was defending someone she cared about. A real softie. Definitely not pale for me, and that one was a death that I was _not—"_ Then he trailed off with a wince, realizing that he was wrong. "Fuck…actually, that one was kind of my fault too…if I'd seen sooner what was happening to Gamzee, I would have gone pale for him sooner and stopped him from murdering Equius, which would have saved Nepeta…" His head thudded down into his hands, and he groaned out, _"Fuck!"_

Rose hummed. "So that's Gamzee, Eridan, Nepeta, and Feferi—all trolls that you blame yourself for indirectly killing. Am I hearing that correctly?"

He grumbled out a hesitant agreement.

"I see." She watched him, expression unreadable. "What about the others that died? Do you feel that you had any hand in their deaths?"

A sour taste flooded his mouth. "Equius," he said. "Another one that went because I couldn't control Gamzee."

Rose nodded politely. "I'll repeat my question, then—did you feel you had a hand in the deaths of any of the others?"

"No," he said immediately. "Tavros was taken out by Vriska; I had nothing to do with it. And other than that, I don't really know how the others died."

"That's true," Rose said. "Kanaya told me that Aradia was alive when she was last seen, and that Sollux in his half-dead form was with her. And though we don't know if Vriska is still out there, it's safe to say that if she _is_ dead, you had no hand in it."

He nodded. "You got that fucking right."

She ignored him. "But I feel as though we've gotten off track. Let me be honest with you, Karkat—I am trying to analyze your psychological state in order to determine whether or not you should be allowed to continue living freely."

"Living freely? What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"You seem to pose a serious threat to yourself at the moment. If I allow you to go back home, you could hurt yourself again. Or worse—you could commit suicide under the influence of your hallucinations."

"What the fuck do you—?"

"If a figment of Gamzee could make you snap your own fingers, I have no doubt that he could lead you to slit your own throat, or to throw yourself off the cliffs not too far from your home."

He winced. She had a point.

"So, then—I need to determine if you should be kept here for your own safety."

He said nothing. What _could_ he say?

Rose hummed thoughtfully. "Karkat, do you understand that what you've been experiencing have been hallucinations?"

He nodded silently. He did. He didn't understand how a hallucination could be so clear, so real, but…

"Do you understand that you have been hurting yourself? That Gamzee wasn't really there?"

He nodded.

She watched him unnervingly. "Very well, then." She got to her feet and placed the notepad on her desk, setting the pen at its side. Then she turned back, and there was a small smile on her face as she said, "I'm going to let you go home, Karkat. But there will be conditions."

Conditions? "Like what?"

"You are no longer allowed to sleep alone. I expect either John or Dave to be with you constantly—you're permitted no more alone timeuntil Kanaya and I manage to alchemize a recuperacoon to help you sleep. I no longer believe that lack of sleep is the main cause of this, but it can't hurt to get some decent rest. In addition, I want you to start talking with John more. Perhaps having a feelings jam with him will start to clear your head a bit."

"Feelings jam?" he echoed. "He's not my fucking moirail!"

Rose raised a brow. "You're a horrible liar."

Karkat grumbled irritably, crossing his arms over his chest.

"In any case, you should talk to John about the guilt you feel over the deaths of your friends. I believe that it may be the cause of your hallucinations, along with your sleeplessness and lack of adequate nutrition, so working through it will be beneficial. In addition, I recommend that you work things out with Dave."

"Dave? But why—?"

"Having those particular quadrants filled will help you, I believe. Having a moirail and a matesprit will give you twice the support, and hopefully heal you twice as fast. And besides, anyone can tell that Dave is in love with you, and you obviously pity him. I understand that he can be a bit hard headed, and that he's done some truly absurd things in the name of protectingyou, but I believe that putting a halt to your hallucinations is more important than that right now."

He drew his knees up to his chest defiantly, glaring at the girl who was now riffling through the papers on her desk. "Are you done now?"

She paused. Then, "Yes, I believe I am. Though I may request that John bring you here later for further evaluation."

He snorted, thinking that he'd rather Gamzee come back and rip his head off than have to talk to Rose again. But he couldn't say that in front of her, not if he didn't wanted to be tortured with another round of psychotherapy, and so he bit out, "Fine. Just get me the fuck out of here."

The corners of her lips quirked upwards. "Very well. It's been nearly a whole day since you fell asleep, so I imagine John and Dave will be quite happy to see you."

†††

\- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] -

TT: Hello, Terezi.

GC: W3LL TH1S 1S N3W!

GC: M1SS3D TH3 B34UT1FUL COLOR OF MY T3XT D1D YOU :]

TT: Something like that, I imagine.

TT: I don't suppose you're any closer to finding your moirail?

GC: NOP3

GC: NOT 3V3N CLOS3

TT: I see...that is unfortunate.

GC: WHY, 1S SOM3TH1NG WRONG?

GC: D1D K4RK4T M3SS SOM3TH1NG UP 4G41N?

GC: TH4T GUY 1S TH3 WORST L34D3R

GC: THOUGH H1S BLOOD 1S SUCH 4 LOV3LY C4NDY R3D TH4T 1 GU3SS 1 C4N FORG1V3 H1M ;]

TT: Actually, something is wrong. Quite wrong, if I'm being honest.

TT: And unfortunately, you're right that it involves Karkat.

TT: You know of his hallucinations, correct?

GC: OH Y34H

GC: H3S ONLY M3SS4G3D M3 ONC3 DUR1NG TH1S WHOL3 M1S3R4BL3 3XP3D1T1ON 4ND 1T W4S TO WH1N3 4BOUT H1S R1D1CULOUS V1S1ONS

TT: I see.

TT: Well, then it shouldn't surprise you to learn that those hallucinations have been growing worse as of late, growing to a head when he was attacked by Gamzee's apparition last night.

TT: The apparition damaged him quite heavily, snapping his fingers and clawing open his chest. It was quite horrific.

GC: WO4H WO4H WO4H!

GC: 1S H3 OK4Y?

TT: That's debatable, and not important for our purposes here.

TT: Or perhaps it is, you be the judge.

TT: For the moment, I have two strange requests for you.

GC: SHOOT

GC: 1V3 GOT NOTH1NG BUT T1M3, 4PPAR3NTLY

TT: Very well.

TT: Can you please describe to me the fighting capabilities and favored weapons of your deceased friends?

GC: HUH?

GC: YOURE R1GHT TH4TS 4 STR4NG3 QU3ST1ON

TT: I would be very thankful if you were to answer.

GC: W3LL OK4Y TH3N

GC: WHO DO YOU W4NT TO H34R 4BOUT F1RST?

TT: How about we start with Gamzee?

TT: Hypothetically speaking, what would someone who had been killed by him look like?

GC: W3LL

GC: TH3 GUYS 4 F4N OF CLUBS B31NG 4 CLOWN 4ND 4LL

GC: SO 1F H3 W4S GO1NG TO K1LL SOM3ON3 TH3Y WOULD B3 4LL B34T3N TO 4 PULP

GC: 4ND TH4TS NOT TH3OR3T1C4L

GC: WH3N G4MZ33 K1LL3D N3P3T4 4ND 3QU1US BOTH OF TH3M LOOK3D L1K3 TH3YD H4D TH31R SKULLS B4SH3D 1N W1TH 4 ROLL1NG P1N

GC: LOTS OF BLOOD

GC: R34L V1OL3NT

GC: TH3 SM3LL W4S TOO MUCH FOR 3V3N M3 TO T4K3

TT: Okay, I understand. What about Eridan?

GC: 4SK1NG 4BOUT 4LL TH3 MURD3R3RS TOD4Y 1 S33

GC: BUT OK4Y

GC: 3R1D4N US3D TH1S TH1NG C4LL3D 4H4BS CROSSH41RS

GC: 1T W4S L1K3 4 GUN TH4T SHOT OUT CONC3NTR4T3D BL4STS OF PL4SM4 SO 4LL OF H1S V1CT1MS H4D HOL3S BURN3D THROUGH TH3M

GC: NOT MUCH BLOOD

TT: Hmm.

TT: What about Tavros? And Nepeta?

GC: N31TH3R OF THOS3 TWO H4V3 TH3 GUTS TO HURT 4NYON3 1NT3NT1ON4LLY

GC: BUT T4VROS PROB4BLY WOULD H4V3 US3D TH4T CR4PPY L4NC3 TO ST4B P3OPL3 W1TH

GC: 4S FOR N3P3T4

GC: SH3S R34L QU1CK 4ND D3P3ND3NT ON 4G1L1TY

GC: 1F SH3 K1LL3D SOM3ON3 SH3D US3 THOS3 W1CK3D CL4WS OF H3RS

GC: THOS3 TH1NGS COULD Sl1C3 THROUGH 4NYTH1NG

TT: And what of Equius?

GC: 3QU1US W4S 4 STRONGM4N SO 1F H3 D1D TRY TO K1LL 4NYON3 TH3YD B3 COMPL3T3LY B34T3N UP

GC: L1K3 H3 ST4RT3D M4SH1NG W1TH H1S F1STS 4ND D1DNT L3T UP

GC: L1K3 3V3R

TT: Understood. What about Feferi, then?

GC: 4 TR1D3NT

GC: K1ND4 SP34KS FOR 1TS3LF

TT: I see. That is very troubling.

GC: WHY

GC: H4S SOM3TH1NG H4PP3N3D 1 DONT KNOW 4BOUT

TT: No, you know everything I do.

TT: However...

TT: When Karkat was brought in, I couldn't help but notice something rather strange. His story was that Gamzee had slashed into his chest by simply reaching out and dragging all ten fingers across his flesh, starting from the clavicle and moving down over his stomach. We both know that what this really means is that he hooked his claws into his own chest and yanked, imagining that Gamzee was the one hurting him. It sounds completely reasonable, and I would have no problem believing him except for a few minor details.

TT: You see, assuming that Karkat grabbed onto his own chest, based on the positioning, depth, and curvature of the wounds, he would done it by turning his wrists to claw at himself. In addition, he would have kept them uncrossed. If he did that, then the shortest cuts would have been on the outsides, from where his thumbs grazed the skin. But this was not the case. I saw his wounds when he entered the lab, and the shortest cuts were actually at the center of his chest. This means that whoever grabbed him had their thumbs braced just to the inside of his heart.

GC: Y34H SO WH4T

GC: COULDT H3 JUST H4V3 GR4BB3D ONTO H1MS3LF D1FF3RN3TLY

TT: No, he couldn't. It's very obvious that whoever slashed at him started from the top and worked their way down, slicing from throat to stomach in one smooth motion. If Karkat wanted to do that to himself, keeping his thumbs on the outer edges of his person as to create the smallest scratches there, *and* maintain the straightness of the cuts, then he would have to contort his body into impossible proportions. It's not physically possible for him to have scratched himself that way.

GC: HOW 1S TH4T POSS1BL3 THOUGH?

GC: 1F H3S H4LLUC1N4T1NG TH4T M34NS H3 H4S TO B3 HURT1NG H1MS3LF 4ND 1M4G1N1NG

OTH3R P3OPL3 DO1NG 1T, R1GHT?

GC: SO HOW COULD H3 B3 HURT 1N 4 W4Y TH4TS 1MPOSS1BL3 FOR H1M TO DO H1MS3LF?

TT: My question exactly.

TT: Every way I turn, I'm confronted by mysteries. It appears that Karkat could not possibly have done this to himself, but what else could have done it? Dirk doesn't have the claws to attack him in such a way, and the only other troll is Kanaya, who would never dream of harming him.

GC: 4 LUSUS CR34TUR3 TH3N

GC: ON3 TH4T SNUCK 1NTO H1S HOUS3

TT: Possible, but unlikely. The site where he was attacked was untouched.

GC: OK4Y Y34H YOUV3 GOT M3

GC: TH4TS PR3TTY STR4NG3

GC: BUT WHY D1D YOU 4SK 4LL TH4T STUFF 4BOUT TH3 D34D TROLLS?

TT: A hunch, that's all.

TT: A suspicion that not all is as it appears.

GC: WH4T3V3R YOU S4Y I GU3SS

GC: YOU S41D YOU H4D TWO STR4NG3 TH1NGS TO 4SK M3 R1GHT

GC: WH4TS TH3 OTH3R ON3?

TT: Well...this is going to be very hard for me to ask you, and very hard for you to think about. But...  
TT: Would you consider returning to our new planet? It doesn't have to be long, just for a few weeks at most. After that, you're free to go back to the veil and continue your search for Vriska.

GC: WHY DO YOU W4NT M3 TO COM3 B4CK?

GC: 1S 1T B3C4US3 OF TH3 MURD3RS?

GC: YOU N33D 4 TOP-NOTCH L3G1SL4C3R4TOR 1S TH4T 1T?

GC: SOM3ON3 WHO C4N R34LLY BR1NG 1N TH3 B4D GUYS :]

TT: While I would also appreciate your help in that area, that is not why I'm asking you to come home.

TT: Rather, I suspect that you may be of some help with Karkat. You are a Seer of Mind, and I believe that you may be able to shed some light onto just what is going on in that head of his. I wish to know how much of what has happened is real, and how much has been caused by his hallucinations. In addition, I desire to know just what happened to cause those scratches that he so obviously could not have given to himself.

GC: 1M FL4TT3R3D 4ND 4LL

GC: BUT YOU DO R34L1Z3 TH4T 1M 4 SH1TTY S33R DONT YOU?

GC: 1V3 N3V3R B33N 4BL3 TO G3T MY POW3RS TO DO WH4T 1 W4NT TH3M TO

TT: Really? John informed me that you were the one that helped him save all of us after the disaster that occurred because of Vriska's preemptive death in an alternate timeline. True, that version of yourself is not the same one here with us today. But from what I've observed, you have the exact same skill level as that other version of yourself. I'm convinced that you're good enough to aid us.

TT: Your help would be appreciated, but in no way should you feel pressured to come home if you feel that you are in any way close to finding Vriska. I have no wish to pull you from your quest to find your moirail.

TT: Please stay if you believe it is the right thing to do.

GC:...

GC: 1LL DO 1T

TT: You will?

GC: Y34H

GC: 1LL COM3 HOM3

TT: I must admit, I'm surprised.

TT: Why have you chosen this path?

GC: W3LL

GC: 1V3 B33N S34RCH1NG FOR MONTHS S1NC3 W3 CR34T3D OUR N3W UN1V3RS3

GC: MONTHS 4ND MONTHS W1THOUT 3ND

GC: 1V3 S3R1OUSLY SCOUR3D 3V3RY 1NCH OF TH1S M1S3R4BL3 PL4C3

GC: 1V3 SM3LL3D 3V3RYTH1NG TH3R3 1S TO SM3LL OUT H3R3

GC: 4ND 1M B3G1NN1NG TO TH1NK TH4T M4YB3

GC: JUST M4YB3

GC: VR1SK4 1SNT COM1NG B4CK

GC: L1K3 3V3R

GC: SO 1 GU3SS TH4T M4YB3 1TS T1M3 FOR M3 TO H34D OFF 4ND 3XP3R13NC3 WH4T SH3 N3V3R

GOT TH3 CH4NC3 TO 3XP3R13NC3

GC: S33 OUR N3W WORLD 4ND 4LL TH4T

GC: H3LP OUR FR13NDS OUT

GC: JUST L1V3 1 GU3SS

GC: B3C4US3 1F SH3 W3R3 H3R3 SH3D D3F1N1T3LY B3 SPOUT1NG OFF G4RB4G3 L1K3 TH4T

GC:...

GC: SH3 W4S TH3 B3ST MO1R41L

TT: I'm sorry.

GC: NOT YOUR F4ULT

GC: NOT 4NYON3S F4ULT BY LORD 3NGL1SHS

TT: How soon will you be here?

GC: NOT SUR3

GC: 1V3 B33N TR4V3L1NG FOR 4 LONG T1M3 SO 1T SHOULD B3 4 WH1L3

GC: BUT 1LL L34V3 NOW 4ND FLY B4CK 4T TOP SP33D

GC: NO D3TOURS

GC: R1GHT B4CK HOM3

GC: 1 DONT TH1NK 1M MUCH OF S33R BUT 1LL DO WH4T 1 C4N TO H3LP K4RK4T

TT: You have my thanks.

TT: Good luck.

\- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] -


	11. Aradia: Search

**Chapter 11:** **Aradia: Search**

* * *

Dave and John took up residence on the couch in John's house early the next morning, ready to have the conversation that they should have had days prior.

"So…you wanna tell me why you nearly took my head off with your windy powers?"

John fidgeted over the question, clearly searching for the right words to respond. "Oh, um…"

"It's cool," Dave interjected. "I'm not mad at you or anything, just a little confused that you resorted to nearly taking my head right the fuck off my shoulders the instant you thought Karkat and I had been in a fight."

He winced. "I'm really sorry about that! I saw that Karkat had been hurt and my brain just kind of…shut off?"

"Shut off, huh?" He paused, watching John for any sign of what he was looking for. But seeing nothing, he was forced to ask John the question he'd been trying to avoid. "Look, John…you seem to really care about Karkat."

"Oh, yeah!" He nodded vigorously. "We've gotten really close lately."

"Right…and I don't suppose you've started to…to _feel_ anything for him, have you?" He cringed at the way the question felt on his tongue. This wasn't something he wanted to ask, but he had to know.

"Feel anything?" John echoed. "Well, yeah—he's my friend! I care about him a lot!"

"And you don't think that those feelings lean a little…I don't know, a little _red?_ Like, romantic?"

"Dear lord," John gasped, "no, of course not! I care for Karkat as a dear friend, nothing more!"

He wasn't entirely convinced. John was so goddamn oblivious, and it was obvious that he'd been getting very close to Karkat in the past weeks. _He insists he's not romantically attracted to him, but I don't trust him to know what he's feeling._

"I'm not really sure why you're saying this to me," John went on. "You're the one that likes Karkat as more than a friend, I'd never interfere with that!"

"Right." He pushed his shades up higher on the bridge of his nose, hiding his doubt. "Of course."

John smiled at him. Then he did a full one-eighty a moment later, suggesting, "Anyways, I think you should really go talk to Dirk."

Dave recoiled. "Wait, why?"

"Well he attacked Karkat," John said, staring at Dave as if he were missing something painfully obvious. "And it's obvious that he's dead set on believing that he's the one that's been murdering people, even though we both know that's not possible."

"Completely impossible," Dave agreed in a low, irritated murmur. But apparently he's crazy enough to think that Karkat could have gotten his hands on the weapons necessary to kill all those villagers, _and_ that he could have been in two places at once, seeing as he was with us when the last murder was committed."

John shook his head. "I just don't get it. How can he still think that Karkat's the one doing this? Is he blind? There aren't any plasma weapons on this planet that we know of, so it's impossible that he killed that villager, or any of the others."

"And that just adds onto the mystery," Dave agreed. "But no matter how impossible it is that Karkat's the killer, it's enough to make Dirk suspicious, and enough to make him attack the poor guy."

"Which is exactly why you should go talk to him!"

"Dude, what is _talking_ going to do at this point? He's dead set on believing Karkat is the culprit, and I don't think that having a nice long chat is going to get him to change his mind."

"You could at least try!" John pleaded. "Come on, Dave…just talk to him for a few minutes?"

"Why can't I just pester him?"

"You two never get anything done when you're chatting online," John pointed out. "You just go round and round and get sidetracked—so go see him in person, and don't get led off on tangents!"

He rubbed a hand through his hair, wanting very badly _not_ togo talk to his idiot of a relative.

"Go!" John insisted, pointing at the door. "We've been sitting here all morning, get out of the house!"

"What, and you get to stay here?"

"Yep! If Rose decides to come here in person for something, one of us should be ready to greet her."

He had to admit, he had a point. "I hate you for this," he said, but there was no heat behind his words.

"Yeah, yeah," John giggled. "Just get out of here!"

He left without another word.

†††

That was how one Dave Strider found himself standing in the home of someone who had recently tried to kill his almost boyfriend, watching as he tinkered with a bunch of mechanical parts spread out across a table.

"Didn't expect you to visit me," Dirk said, breaking the awkward silence. Dave hadn't really announced he was coming in, he'd just…well, _done it,_ which had prompted something of a standoff as the two Striders waited to see which one would acknowledge the other first. "Thought you'd stay away, seeing as I tried to slice your boyfriend's hands off and all that."

Dave tensed, but refused to let his irritation seep into his words as he said, "Yeah, it was a little hard to get myself here. But John insisted, so here I am."

"Hmm." Dirk kept tinkering with the weird contraption on his desk.

 _No tangents,_ Dave told himself. _John told me to get straight to the point, and so I will._ And so with that in mind, he opened his mouth and asked, "What are you making?"

 _Fuck. So much for not getting off topic._

Dirk lit up at the question. "I'm working with thermal sensors, actually. Obviously there wasn't a code for alchemizing them, but I think I've managed to piece together something vaguely functional. A real pain in the ass, but it's working."

"What are they for?" Dave drifted closer, looking down at the sensors. They were rickety things, obviously pieced together from things Dirk had already had on hand.

"I'm studying the hemospectrum, actually."

"The hemospectrum? As in the whole troll blood type thing? Why are you studying that?"

He shrugged. "It's interesting. Got me thinking…is it possible to find some way of tracing certain blood types? Like, if a troll with green blood went missing, could I calibrate some kind of machine to track them based on blood type alone?"

"How would you go about that?"

"Dunno." Dirk put down the screwdriver he'd been shoving at one of the sensors. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. Supposedly the highbloods have an extremely low average body temperature, while the lowbloods run far hotter than humans."

"That's why you have the thermal sensors," Dave realized. "Think you can track trolls based on their body heat?"

"Yeah, I do. It's tough, though—there are only three trolls alive right now, you know, with one of them off world, so I can't really calibrate the device with the full spectrum."

"Sounds rough." Dave took a step back as Dirk finally stopped tinkering, looking up at him through those pointy shades of his.

"So," Dirk said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Why are you here? I'm certain you didn't come after me just to have a _lovely_ conversation about thermal scanners."

"Nah," Dave agreed. "Hey, why don't you fly with me?" He didn't want to have this conversation in the house. He could hear Jake shuffling around upstairs, and he _really_ wasn't into the idea of being teamed up on if this whole mess ended in a fight.

"Sure," Dirk shrugged. "Where to?"

"How about the fields where that first body was found?"

Another shrug. "Sure, man—but let's make this quick. I don't really want to leave Jake alone for long if there's a murder walking around in broad daylight."

He ignored the not-so-subtle jab at Karkat and led Dirk from the room, the two of them shooting up into the sky after a few words to Jake explaining where they were headed.

"I'm surprised you guys have been home so much," Dave said casually. "The two of you always used to be out doing the whole exploring thing, but it seems like you've been staying home a lot ever since the first murder."

"What can I say?" Dirk pulled ahead, and Dave sped up as not to lose him. The guy was _fast._ "We aren't interested in running out into the wilderness so long as someone's out there killing people. I'm sure I could handle the guy, but Jake worries me."

"Yeah, I guess he would." It wasn't exactly hidden knowledge that English was the weakest fighter out of all of them.

They flew in silence for several minutes after that, and Dave quickly realized that the fields were a lot further away than he remembered. Maybe they should just…?

"Dude, this flight is a fucking drag," Dirk complained. "I'm gonna flash step there. You coming?"

 _Just what I was thinking._ "Yeah, sure."

They jumped. Dirk was faster than him, though he would never admit it aloud, and when Dave finally came to a halt he was already waiting for him. They'd come out into the middle of the field where the first body had been found. No one was around.

"Well that was pleasant," Dirk remarked, shoving his hands into his pockets and angling his shades at the bright midday sky. "Now, should we get down to business?"

"Yeah," Dave agreed, "I guess we should."

"Oh, good. I was wondering when we were gonna do this."

"Wait, what—?" Dave recoiled with a barely concealed yelp as a flash of silver passed not two inches from the side of his head, neatly slicing a few centimeters off the tips of his hair. He swung around to face Dirk, who was suddenly behind him with his katana angled towards the sky in front of his chest. "Dude, what the _fuck?"_

Dirk smirked, reaching up to adjust the way his shades rested across the bridge of his nose. "What's wrong? You dragged me out here to take care of me, right? To make sure I don't kill your boyfriend?"

"Dude, no!" Dave bit out, sword appearing in hand. "I came out here to talk to you, dipshit!"

"Oh." Dirk relaxed his posture, but his sword remained in his grasp. "Well, shit. Sorry about that, dude. Totally thought you were about to attack me."

"Right," Dave hissed, mirroring Dirk in keeping his weapon at the ready. He didn't trust this situation to stay peaceful, not after seeing how trigger-happy Dirk was. "Well now that that's out of the way, can we do what we _actually_ came here to do?"

Dirk blinked. "Well, yeah…go for it."

Two fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose. "Look, man, I'll make this real quick. I want you to stop going after Karkat."

"Not gonna happen."

"Just _listen_ to me. I know you're determined to think that Karkat's the one that's been doing this, but the evidence just _doesn't_ add up."

"Oh no," Dirk said, "that's not true. From where I'm standing, all signs point to one very angry, very unstable troll. He's a fucking train wreck, you _know_ that."

He winced. He hadn't told Dirk about what had happened to Karkat the previous night, and he didn't intend to. "That doesn't mean he's _killing_ people, dude! It's so unlikely; why are you determined to go after him?"

"Because it's unlikely, not _impossible_. And right now, even _you_ can't deny that Karkat is the only suspect we have."

"He's not a suspect! How the fuck would he have gotten his hands on a plasma gun, anyways? And I was _with_ him when that last murder occurred. It just wasn't him, and you're not right in the head if you're still trying to accuse him!"

Dirk blew right past him. "No matter how unlikely it may be, it's _not_ impossible, and that means that he's still a suspect, and still the _best_ suspect we have."

" _How_ is it not impossible, exactly?" Dave asked through clenched teeth. "You're just _wrong_ about this. He's been too weak to hurt anyone recently, even if he had managed to get his hands on the right weapons for the job."

"Too weak, huh? Well, he seemed pretty damn strong with he clawed my face open and dragged Jake out of that tree."

He hesitated. Actually…that was true. Karkat claimed that one of his hallucinations had hurt Dirk, but that was just code for saying that _Karkat_ had done it while imagining that it was really someone else. If he'd had the strength to hurt Dirk and smash Jake into the ground…if he'd had the strength to snap his own fingers and claw open his own chest…

He shook his head. No, no! He couldn't let himself think like that! Karkat was _innocent!_ He'd been _with_ him when the last murder had been committed, so it couldn't have been him!

 _Or at least, that_ last _murder couldn't have been him._

A smile hooked into the corners of Dirk's mouth. "Why don't you come talk to me again once you convince _yourself_ he's innocent, huh?"

Dave recoiled in a very un-Strider-like way, features creasing with momentary worry. "I'm completely convinced; _you're_ the problem."

"Right," Dirk chuckled. "Just keep telling yourself that."

Dave shot up into the air, knuckles white as he gripped the hilt of his sword. "You know what? This was a horrible idea. Fuck you, and fuck John for making me come out here. I'm out."

Dirk had the nerve to _laugh_ at him as he started to fly away, gearing up to flash step right the fuck over to John and deck him in the face for making him talk to his dysfunctional relative.

"Come back once you've figured out who's really guilty!" Dirk called after him, katana glinting in the dull sunlight.

He didn't plan to.

†††

Some time later, John and Dave arrived at the lab to take Karkat home.

Both boys listened with rapt attention as Rose explained the conditions of his release, making it _very_ clear that the troll was not to be left alone for even a single moment. Someone would always have to be in the room with him to make sure that he couldn't hurt himself—and though it sounded exhausting to say the least, both seemed happy just to have Karkat with them and not locked up in the lab.

"There is one good thing that comes out of this," Rose remarked as John slung one of Karkat's arms over his shoulders in preparation to fly him back home. "The next time a murder occurs, assuming you and Dave are diligent in your surveillance, Karkat should have a completely solid alibi. No one will be able to accuse him of anything."

And that, Dave thought, would be the biggest relief on the whole goddamn planet. He was sick of dealing with Dirk's shit, as he'd said to John in a rather ineloquent way upon returning home.

"That's good, at least," John agreed with a sad smile. He extended an arm to scoop up Karkat's lower half and cradle him to his chest. "And you don't have to worry, Rose, we'll take care of him."

"I expect nothing less." Rose turned her gaze on Karkat, who was remaining eerily silent. He was obviously conscious, reddish eyes staring out at nothing, but he didn't seem interested in participating in the conversation. "Karkat, I expect you to follow through on what we discussed."

John frowned. "What you discussed…?"

"As him about it later." She stepped back, giving them room to take off. "Now, off you go! There are a few things I must attend to."

"Oh, of course! Thank you, Rose!"

"Yeah," Dave echoed. "Thanks."

John lifted a few feet up into the air. Then he paused, looking down at Dave. "Hey, uh…what are you going to do? I mean, are you coming with us?"

He paused. Would Karkat want him around yet? They'd at least _started_ to patch up their shit, and the guy had seemed more than willing to cuddle with him on the couch, but…

John's expression softened. "How about I take Karkat back to the house? You can think about it and do whatever you think is right."

He nodded, thankful for once that John was so adept at reading him. "Yeah, that sounds great. See you later, dude."

John offered him the goofiest smirk possible. Then he was shooting up into the sky, Karkat clutching onto him in alarm, and rocketing for home. It didn't take long for Dave, still staring after them, to take off as well.

He had some thinking to do.

†††

A few hours after that, Dave pushed open the door to the home Karkat shared with John, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and promptly proceeded to plop down on the couch beside one very dazed Karkat Vantas.

John didn't even bat an eye when he saw him. He just smiled and said, "Take whatever room you like, I don't think Karkat will mind. Oh, and do you want anything to drink? You look a little tired."

"I'm fine," was the automatic response. He looked to Karkat, but the troll didn't even seem to notice he was there. "What's with him?"

John shrugged. "I don't know…he's thinking, I guess. Apparently Rose said some things to him that really made him question what's been going on."

"Has he said anything?"

John opened his mouth to respond, but Karkat cut him off with a low, "I'm trying to _think._ If you're going to talk, go do it in the meal block!"

So that was a yes. John was visibly holding back laughter as Dave shook his head, saying, "Oh no, I'm comfortable right here. John, what do you say we shut up for a while?"

And then he really did laugh, agreeing, "Yeah, sounds good to me." He sat down on the couch on Karkat's other side with a contented sigh, limbs thrown out at odd angles that were apparently perfectly comfortable for him. He yawned, and Dave found it hard not to follow suit.

Karkat, on the other hand, looked to be wide awake. Dave couldn't help but feel a twinge of concern when he saw the way the troll was glaring through the television screen, obviously failing to take in the glory of the cheesy romcom playing out on the screen. He was deep in thought in a way Dave had never seen before, and he desperately hoped that that was a good thing.

He heard shuffling on the other end of the couch. When he looked over, he saw that John was already slumping down tiredly, and that his cheek was mushed into Karkat's shoulder.

 _Adorable,_ was his first thought. But then his heart turned sour as he realized, _like hell he doesn't have feelings for him. Well, two can play at that game, Egbert._ He purposefully slouched down and smashed his face into Karkat's other shoulder with more force than was necessary. His nose kinda hurt after he did it, but hearing Karkat's irritated huff was worth all the pain in the world.

"You're both impossible," Karkat growled. But Dave felt claws lightly pricking at his scalp a heartbeat later as the troll started to card his fingers through his hair, and he knew that he wasn't really angry.

"Impossible," Dave agreed, choking back a laugh as a snore sounded from the troll's other side. "But you love me anyway, don't you?"

Karkat spared him a glare. "You're insufferably pathetic. Happy?"

He smirked. "Only if you are, Karkles."

†††

 _He was dreaming again. And this time, it was someone different._

 _"Karkat."_

 _He blinked, struggling to orient himself. It was always a challenge to figure out what was happening when he first started dreaming—but that was a small price to pay, seeing as the past few dreams_ hadn't _ended in murder._

 _"I don't aim to impose, but are you able to hear me?"_

 _He gave a shallow nod. His vision was blurry, but he could just make out the form of a very familiar troll standing in front of him._

 _"Ah. That's good. I don't suppose you've seen Nepeta around, have you?"_

 _Another nod, this time as he remembered how she'd taken Dirk out. But wait…that had been a hallucination, not a real event. He amended his mistake with a murmured_ no.

 _"Don't be foolish, of course you've seen her. You yourself said that you had—now where is she? That's an_ order, _Vantas!"_

 _"Don't know," he managed, and his vision was finally clear enough to make out a fuzzy picture of the scene around him. "She attacked Dirk and ran, how the fuck should I know what she got up to after that?"_

 _There was a pause, the silence broken by a series of sharp, damp breaths. Gog, Equius had always been such a creep. "So you truly are ignorant of her location?"_

 _"Yeah, I have no fucking clue. Why, did you lose her? Are you that bad at keeping track of your moirail?"_

 _Equius looked away irritably. "Watch your tongue!"_

 _He snorted. "Is that an order?"_

 _"Yes! Wait, no—only if you want it to be!"_

 _He cringed, wondering why he'd gotten stuck with_ this _guy in his dream. Sure, it was better than being murdered, but not by much. "Nepeta," he reminded him._

 _"Oh, yes—unfortunately, we were separated. None of us can see each other anymore. Something is changing."_

 _"None of you? Meaning what?"_

 _"Meaning everyone, you fool. Nepeta, Gamzee, Eridan…" And there he visibly shuddered, pausing to ask, "Oh…I don't suppose you have a towel on you?"_

 _"Step back, you perverted fuckass!" Karkat snapped, holding a warning hand out in front of him._

 _"Ah, yes—my apologies. I suppose if you have not seen Nepeta, and you don't have any spare towels on hand, I should really be going to fetch one. I'll speak with you later, Vantas."_

 _"Wait!" Karkat yelped. "Wait—I need to ask you something!"_

 _Equius paused. "What is it?"_

 _And Karkat,_ knowing _that it wasn't a good question to ask,_ knowing _that it would just twist his think pan around even further to hear the answer from some fucking_ ridiculous _figment of his own mind, opened his mouth and asked the question that had been eating at him since his very first conversation with the trolls that were appearing in his dreams. "Are you real?"_

 _Equius frowned. "Of course I'm real."_

 _His breath caught in his throat. But no, he couldn't believe this—Equius was just another figment of his think pan, and his think pan was trying to convince him that the hallucinations were real._

 _"Vantas, just because no one else can see us doesn't mean that we're not there. Besides, we're gaining a considerable amount of power now. Even those of the lowest blood caste are gaining strength. Soon everyone will be able to see us, and then—"_

 _A low snarl cut through the pleasant atmosphere of the dream, making both of them jump._

 _"That would be my cue to leave," Equius said curtly. "I have no intentions of getting caught up in that fool's revenge scheme. Until next time, Vantas."_

 _Then he was gone and all was left was that snarl, low and threatening and cutting straight to Karkat's very core until he was backing himself away as fast as he could without looking away from the pair of indigo eyes that had just appeared in the shadows._

 _It wasn't real. These dreams, though vivid, had to be fake._

 _But they sure as hell didn't feel that way._

†††

Thousands upon thousands of miles away, a pair of rapidly fluttering wings carried a very familiar troll along the furthest ring of existence.

She'd been traveling forever, she thought. For sweeps and sweeps, endlessly searching, and there was no sign of the one person she was desperately hunting for. She would have given up if not for the fact that she _needed_ that other troll to be here. She _needed_ her to be alive. Because if she wasn't…

Well. Losing their new world so soon after gaining it wouldn't be a pretty sight.

"Vriska!" she shouted, voice carrying on endlessly in the void. "Vriska!" Normally she'd be afraid of alerting anyone around of her presence, but she wasn't afraid of that anymore. The dream bubbles were almost completely destroyed at this point, all but a few souls sucked into the massive 'black hole' that had been created by that alternate version Calliope, and the only _living_ troll she'd been concerned about had decided to return to the new planet to aid Karkat.

But that didn't mean she was entirely alone.

She jerked her head up as she felt the familiar tug of the black hole that wasn't _really_ a black hole. She hissed in annoyance. No matter which direction she flew in, she _always_ ended up right back here. Right back where she'd started, subconsciously drawn by this part of the universe's desire to destroy itself and everyone in it. Her only companion had the same issue, and it only worried her more that should Vriska have been alive, _surely_ she too would have felt the pull and returned here.

She darted out of the reach of the black hole with an irritated huff. She would choose a new direction, then, and then she would fly until she ended up right back where she was now. It was an endless cycle, repeating without cessation. But she _had_ to find Vriska. If they were going to overcome the disaster streaking towards their new planet, she _had_ to be there.

A loud string of curses caught her attention, and she jolted as she realized that the familiar buzz of psionics was crackling in the air around her. "Sollux!"

A few more curses sounded, and then the only other living troll around was appearing, swathed in a mixture of red and blue energy. He'd been drifting along behind one of the countless meteors dappling the furthest ring, thus his apparent invisibility.

"Sollux!" she repeated, darting to his side. "Did something happen?"

His one good eye flickered up irritably before his entire body sagged with relieved recognition. "AA, thank fuck. I'm jutht tho fucking _pithed_ at thith whole rediculouth dithather!"

She sighed. It was no secret to her that Sollux was becoming increasingly infuriated with their pointless search. "There's nothing else we can do, I'm afraid. We need to find Vriska before we can return to the new planet and reunite with our friends."

"Yeah, tho you've thaid," the psionic grumbled. "You're abtholutely thertian that we need her thorry ath?"

"Quite certain"

"Ahh, shit!" Sollux clenched and unclenched his fingers rhythmically and the haze of psionics around them intensified tenfold. "I thwear, I'm going out of my pan here! Every time we thtart thearching in a new direction, we jutht get pulled right back here! I'm thick of it, AA!"

Aradia offered him a helpless shake of the head. "I really am sorry, but there's just nothing else we can do!" _Unless…_

She reviewed what she knew about the future. Silently, of course, because where would the fun be in blabbing it all to anyone who would listen?

 _We're already so low on time…and I need all the help I can get out here if I want to find Vriska in time. But still…Sollux isn't much help anymore, and he's just going to keep becoming angrier and angrier until he snaps. He'll drive himself mad out here. I could send him to warn Karkat and the others, but then it would take far too long for him to get to the new planet to be of any help. The time he spends flying will be lost time, useless to everyone. I need something else…a better solution…_

"And thith gogdamn black hole ith really driving me shithive maggotth!" Sollux kicked the air in the direction of the thing, which was still doing its best to suck them in.

"It's not a black hole," she corrected. "How many times must I remind you?"

He grumbled, "Well it thucked all the thouls into it and prethumably obliterated them, tho I think I'll go ahead and call it one!"

"It's not a black hole," she repeated, but she wasn't really talking to Sollux anymore. Instead she drifted closer, eyeing the thing with newfound curiosity. No…it wasn't a black hole, it was a _gateway—_ and if that gateway worked the way she thought it did, then it would take Sollux exactly where he needed to go. "Sollux," she said. "Be quiet."

The troll choked, having been cut off in the middle of his frazzled rant. "What?"

"Be quiet, and jump into the black hole."

"What?" he repeated, spluttering. "Fuck off, AA, _you_ can jump into the black hole if you're tho eager to thee what'th inthide."

She blinked, surprised. He normally wasn't so harsh with her. "Sollux, I know you're tired of being here, and I know you're tired of searching—so I'm going to give you a new job."

That made him pause. The psionic haze died around him, and he drifted closer with a curious look on his face. "A job that involveth jumping into a black hole?"

"A job that involves going back to warn our friends about what's coming."

His single working eye went wide. "Ith that allowed?"

"We are outside the reaches of paradox space now," she reminded him. "Nothing we do can create a doomed timeline—but that also means that this is our only chance to get it right." She turned her face to the black hole, watching it continue to suck in what remained of the dream bubbles. "The last of the dream bubbles are fading now, and soon we will no longer be able to use them to send warnings to our friends."

"Not that that'th worked very well," Sollux snorted. "Karkat ith the only one that'th remembered anything we've told him; the otherth alwayth forget before they wake up. And the dream bubbleth are tho fragmented that Karkat hath only been able to thee _you_ , and even then he'th not really underthtanding your warningth."

That was true. She'd tried many times to use the fragmented dream bubbles to warn Karkat or _anyone_ about what was coming, but it had never gone well. Everyone but Karkat forgot the dreams once they woke up, and the bubbles were so shattered that she wasn't getting her message through to even Karkat. It was like trying to talk through a fan—her voice just sounded distorted, and all Karkat got out of it was a series of cryptic messages that didn't really tell him anything. One particularly long-winded warning about Gamzee had come out as only a single sentence— _when the time comes, you will know what to do._ So sending a warning, a _real_ warning, was impossible.

Or at least, it would have been…if not for the gateway staring them straight in the face.

"We're running out of time," she whispered.

"Ith thith one of your Maid of Time thingth?"

"Yes," she decided. "Yes, it is. I can feel the impending disaster growing near, and we have to do something _now._ If we can just warn them, find a way to send a real message…"

"And you think I can thend a methage by jumping into the black hole?"

"Yes, actually—I do."

"And how ith that thuppothed to work?"

"It's a _gateway,"_ she said for the hundredth time. "It will take you where you need to go, if I'm right."

"And if you're not?"

She eyed him levelly. "Then it won't matter, because failing to send this message would have ended in all of our deaths anyways."

He paused. Then, "Okay, yeah, that'th a good excuthe. Tho you jutht want me to jump in?"

She nodded, knowing full well that she could be about to send Sollux to his death if she was incorrect about the true function of the gaping window to the unknown. "Yes, that is exactly what I want you to do."

"But what am I thuppothed to thay once I get there? What do I tell them?"

"Everything you know. Warn them about the dream bubbles, warn them about the six souls that have remained on their world, and warn them about the final choice the game has left them with."

"All that, huh? You're not worried that my think pan will get itthelf thcrambled by the black hole once I go through it?"

"Unfortunately that _is_ a possibility, considering that every spirit that passes through it seems to wind up crazy—but we have no other choice, and hopefully the fact that you're only half dead will help things considerably."

"Well. Fuck." Sollux drifted closer to the black hole and peered into it, looking only slightly perturbed. "I jutht jump in. Jutht like that."

"You do," she said. Then her expression softened, seeing how Sollux was bristling with barely-concealed terror. "It's okay to be afraid."

"I'm not fucking thcared!" Sollux snapped. But he blanched, then, no doubt realizing how unreasonable he was being, and said, "Thorry, AA…that was uncalled for."

"It's fine," she shooshed him. "But if you're going to get there in time, you should leave now. I have no clue how long it will take for the black hole to spit you out where you need to go, so the sooner the better." She floated to his side, only slightly alarmed at how close they were to the gateway, and reached out to cup the side of Sollux's face. "It's terrifying, I know—but it's going to be okay."

He laughed humorlessly. "You don't know that."

"I don't," she agreed. "Not for certain. It's just a feeling I have, and my feelings are known to be quite accurate."

"I know they are, AA." Sollux pulled away, drifting to the edge of the black hole. "Okay then…goodbye, I gueth."

She smiled. "Not goodbye: see you later. That way we're bound to run into each other again eventually."

"Oh gog, that'th the cheethiest thing I've ever heard."

"Anything that works, right?"

He rolled his eyes—or rather, his _eye—_ but it was obvious that he felt about a hundred times better. "Right, right. I'll thee you later then, AA."

"I'll see you later, Sollux."

Then he was gone, vanishing into the black hole with nothing more than a pained hiss.


	12. John: Confess

**Wooh! Get ready for some feelings!**

 **Chapter 12:** **John: Confess**

* * *

After that, the murders stopped entirely.

No one in the house mentioned it. John, Dave, and Karkat went about their business as usual, with the exception of Karkat being held under house arrest, and pretended that the troll being locked in his own house _didn't_ correspond with the sudden cessation in murders. They were all three sure that Dirk was having a field day, running around spreading rumors like nobody's business, but they ignored him. Rose was no doubt having her own suspicions, as was _everyone,_ but none of them wanted to acknowledge it.

And so the three of them just lived, the atmosphere between them only slightly charged, and did what they could to keep each other sane.

For his part, John did everything he could to make Karkat talk. He was constantly asking about the conversation he'd had with Rose, always needling him to tell him what had happened and start to work thorough whatever had reduced him to a nervous wreck. He wasn't very successful, but he'd managed to drag the troll onto the pile in the living room a few times so far to talk things over.

Dave was reserved, as always. He followed Karkat around like a lost puppy, silent and watchful, tailing him wherever he chose to go. Karkat had to chase him out of the bathroom more than once, snarling whenever he invaded his privacy just a bit too thoroughly. Mostly the two of them were peaceful, though, and for the days that followed it wasn't uncommon to find them sitting side by side on the couch, leaned into each other wordlessly as a movie droned in the background. They weren't fixed by any stretch of the imagination. They still bickered and fought and snapped at each other, but they were _talking_ , and that was the important part.

Karkat was quiet, which was alarming in and of itself. He didn't hesitate to snarl and bark at his housemates whenever he felt irritated, but for the most part he was silent. He was deep in thought, it seemed, brow furrowed as he considered whatever demon was nibbling at his mind. He mainly sat on the couch staring at nothing.

Days, then weeks passed in this manner. Things were no better. Karkat woke up screaming whenever he managed to sleep, his nightmares having worsened after being attacked by Gamzee. He didn't see any more fully formed figments, but he _did_ hear them. Scratches on the walls late at night, doors swinging open and closed at random, whispers from familiar voices in the dark. Eyes, solid and real as himself, peering out from behind corners. He was hearing them more often now. His condition was worsening.

It was worsening, and everyone knew it.

†††

\- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] -

TT: I fear that we are running out of you almost here?

GC: W3LL H3LLO TO YOU TOO

GC: 1 DONT R34LLY KNOW HOW CLOS3 1 4M

GC: C4NT B3 TH4T F4R OFF 1 HOP3

TT: Please hurry.

GC: 1M GO1NG 4S F4ST 4S 1 C4N 1 PROM1S3

GC: D1D SOM3TH1NG 3LS3 H4PP3N?

TT: Nothing specific, no.

TT: But Karkat's condition is growing worse and worse with every day, and I fear that many of us are starting to suspect that he's the one that slaughtered those villagers.

TT: The murders have completely stopped since he was locked away in his own home, and despite the fact that John was with Karkat when one of the murders was committed, everyone seems to be overlooking that in their paranoia.

TT: Even John seems worried about it, which is saying something for someone as optimistic as him.

GC:...

GC: LOOK

GC: 1 KNOW YOUR3 W41T1NG ON M3 TO 4RR1V3 4ND S4V3 3V3RYON3S 4SS3S 4ND 4LL TH4T

GC: BUT 1 TH1NK TH4T WH4T YOUR3 D34L1NG W1TH 1S PROB4BLY SOM3TH1NG TH4T K4RK4T H4S TO WORK OUT FOR H1MS3LF W1TH H1S MO1R41L  
GC: YOU TOLD M3 4 WH1L3 4GO TH4T YOU TH1NK H1S GU1LT 1S WH4TS M4K1NG H1M FL1P H1S SH1T

GC: TH4T SOUNDS L1K3 SOM3TH1NG H3 N33DS TO T4LK OUT

TT: I agree, but if he is going to continue to refuse to speak to John then your help may be necessary to stop him from tearing himself apart. I know you think little of your abilities of a Seer, but I know I can find some way for you to help.

GC: 1F YOU S4Y SO

GC: 1S TH4T 4LL YOU W4NT3D?

TT: It is. I apologize for pestering you so frequently, but I find myself growing increasingly concerned with what is occurring here.

TT: I fear that soon we may find ourselves turning on each other as a result of our own paranoia.

GC: Y34H TH4T SOUNDS PR3TTY S3R1OUS

GC: DONT WORRY, 1LL G3T TH3R3 4S SOON 4S 1 C4N 4ND S4V3 4LL OF YOU!

TT: I look forward to that.

\- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] -

†††

 _"I know you're down with hearin' me right now, Karbro."_

Karkat didn't so much as move his head, keeping his gaze locked on the television. It was late at night, and the two humans he now lived with were already asleep, John in his room and Dave slumped against his side, shades hanging off his face limply. It couldn't have been comfortable, but he slept there anyway.

 _Pitiful fuck,_ Karkat thought, lips quirking upwards in the vague imitation of a smile. He reached out and shoved Dave's shades back up the bridge of his nose, receiving a sleepy murmur of appreciation in response, then the feeling of sleep-slackened fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

 _"Karbro. You gonna answer me, motherfucker?"_

He didn't respond. Responding to hallucinations was a no-no, as Rose had insisted many times. Instead he decided to focus on Dave, watching the way the human's breath ruffled his bangs. The troll's arm, thrown around the human haphazardly, drew him closer in an attempt to drown out the familiar voice.

 _"Aww, well that's just all kinds of rude, you know that? I'm real disappointed in you."_

His eye twitched. _No, focus on Dave. Focus on_ Dave.

He was having a hard time focusing on Dave.

 _"That pretty little motherfucker your matesprit?"_

He tensed and Dave burrowed closer in response, face sliding down to press against his chest as one arm threw itself messily around his middle.

 _"Real motherfucking cute,"_ Gamzee's disembodied voice commented. _"Would you mind if I up and_ wrecked _that pretty face of his?"_

His chest tightened painfully. He didn't realize until Dave whimpered in his sleep that he was digging his claws into his shoulder, drawing tiny beads of blood to the surface. He released his grip immediately.

 _"And how about that adorable motherfucker sleeping upstairs? That the fleshy meatbag you went and replaced me with?"_

He forced his breathing to steady. _Rose says it's a hallucination. It has to be a hallucination._

 _"Think he'd be willing to play with me? Seeing you all rejectin' me and shit really puts me in the worst motherfucking mood, you know? Need someone to go and take it out on."_

 _Not real not real not real not real_

"Oww," Dave groaned sleepily, twisting in his grip. "Karkles, claws!"

He snapped his hands away as if he'd been burned, and Gamzee's voice vanished in a heartbeat. "Sorry," he rasped. "Just a little tense."

Dave tried to sit up for a moment, then seemed to think better of it. Instead he slid down, turning until he was lying on his back across the couch with his head in Karkat's lap. This was familiar to both of them. Comforting.

"Hearing things again?" Dave asked softly, one hand rising to brush hair out of his eyes.

"Yeah," Karkat grumbled, leaning into the touch. "Gamzee."

He smirked tiredly. "Better than the horse creep."

He completely disagreed. But Dave was trying to make him feel better, so… "Yeah, definitely a _thousand_ fucking times better than Equius."

Dave yawned, flashing those blunt human teeth of his. "Go to bed?" he suggested, glancing over and noticing that the credits were rolling on whatever nonsense movie had been playing.

"What, is your weak human physique failing to keep up with my obviously superior troll physiology?" It was a horrible joke—Dave was in far better shape than him at the moment.

"Dude," Dave protested hoarsely, "don't act like you could take down a Strider."

"Yeah, yeah…" He shuffled around a bit, shoving Dave off his lap just long enough to position himself so that he was laying across the length of the couch. Then he pulled the human back down beside him, thankful that they'd decided to alchemize the biggest couch on the fucking planet, and hooked an arm around his neck.

Dave murmured something, but it was lost in the way his face was pressed into his chest. Then he said it again, pulling back slightly, and it came out as, "Karkles, there's a reason we have a king-sized bed upstairs."

"Too tired to make it there," he decided. The truth was, he was just afraid of going upstairs. He was always afraid of going into new areas of the house now, because something was always waiting for him around every corner. If he could stay in the living room forever, he would gladly do it.

"Okay," Dave said, sounding utterly wrecked with exhaustion. "Then at least let me roll over…" He tugged slightly, and Karkat pulled back to let him do as he wished. He almost protested the sudden lack of warmth, but he found that he didn't mind so much when Dave's back was suddenly flush against his chest, entire body pressed along the length of his.

They were silent for a long moment after that, Karkat content to throw an arm over his matesprit(?)'s waist, pressing his forehead into the back of his neck. But then Dave fidgeted suddenly, and a sleepy voice said, "Wait…did you just make me the little spoon?"

"What the fuck does that even mean?" Karkat murmured irritably. "Why are you talking about human cutlery when I'm trying to cuddle the shit out of you?"

Dave paused. Then, "Dunno…"

"Then shut the fuck up and go back to sleep."

Another pause, this one longer than the last. Then he sighed, and a few minutes later his breathing evened out and his entire form went lax.

Karkat found himself staring at the back of Dave's head, fingers scraping lightly at the place where his pajama shirt covered his stomach. _This is getting worse,_ he acknowledged. _Every day I hear them more and more often. Maybe…maybe it's time for me to listen to Rose._

It wasn't like he hadn't _tried_ to talk to John about the whole guilt thing. He'd drug John onto the pile multiple times, each in hopes of finally getting through the massive fucking wall in his think pan that wasn't letting him talk, but he'd never gotten over it. Every time they'd just ended up talking about something useless, Karkat hating himself more and more every time it happened.

 _Talk to him,_ Rose had insisted. _I have a feeling that your guilt is one of the main causes of your hallucinations._

He winced. _I really need to get over this. I'd like to think that I'm not that stereotypical sap who watches all these romcoms and waits for them to happen to him, but…I'd really love for John to sweep me right the fuck off my feet right now, like some kind of moirail prince charming._

Tomorrow, he decided, as he'd decided a dozen times before. He would sit John down tomorrow after Dave was asleep, drag him onto the pile with him and not let himself leave until he finally managed to talk through his shit. He felt a flicker of nervousness, half at the prospect of finally talking things through with John and half in trepidation at how he was going to make it through the night when the voices wouldn't leave him alone.

Dave's hand found his suddenly, and for a moment he jumped as he thought that the human had awoken—but then the hand fell away with a sleepy mumble, and he realized that he was just fidgeting in his sleep.

 _That's right…I don't just have John, I have Dave too—and that will be enough to keep me grounded._

For the rest of night, Karkat hid in the back of Dave's shirt to avoid the voices.

†††

Just like all the others, the next day was slow and lazy.

Dave woke up at his normal time nestled in Karkat's arms, the troll holding him so tightly that it would be a miracle if he could escape on his own. Despite sleeping on the couch, it had been a pretty comfortable night. His relationship with Karkat was slowly coming around, and it made him the most unironically happy person in the world when he tried to get up and the troll just tugged him closer with a purr.

 _Purring._ It was something he knew trolls did, along with a cacophony of other strange sounds and clicks, but he'd never actually heard it for himself until that morning, when Karkat let out just a few rusty notes that soon faded into nothing.

"Don't you fucking move," Karkat murmured into the back of his neck. "And don't you fucking _dare_ mention any of this to John."

He laughed, perfectly content to push further back into the warmth offered by Karkat's mutant blood. "Don't mean to burst your bubble, dude, but it's no big secret that you're itching to hop aboard the Strider express."

"Gog," he groaned, "you are so fucking perverted." He shifted, and then Dave felt two hands pressing into his back. "You know what? You can leave now."

"Aww, come on, Karkles!" Dave twisted around, a smirk on his face, and trapped Karkat between him and the back of the couch. "There, isn't that better?"

"You sick, twisted—!"

He just laughed, snaking his arms around Karkat's shoulders and dragging him to his chest in the fiercest embrace he had the strength for. "Come on, you know you love me." Then he paused. " _Pity_ me, I mean."

"As if," he snapped, but his voice was softer than it should have been for such fiery words. "Get off me, Strider!"

He tightened his grip. "Not a chance, Vantas."

"I swear to gog I will _end_ you, Strider!"

"Real threatening, dude, but we both know all you want is to cuddle right up next to me for the next few years."

"That is the _last_ fucking thing I want!"

"Just keep telling yourself that, love."

"I—!"

The stairs creaked suddenly, and both threw an alarmed glance over their shoulder as a familiar voice sounded. "Woah! Should I, uh…come back later?"

"No!" Karkat snapped, just as Dave opened his mouth and blurted out _yes._

John stared at them oddly. "Um…okay?"

Karkat's hands settled on his chest, and the next moment Dave found himself becoming rather intimately acquainted with the ground in front of the couch. "Oww…" he groaned. "Dude, uncool."

"Deal with it, fuckass!"

John flew forward and helped him to his feet. "Wow, Karkat, you seem better today! More feisty, I guess."

"That'll happen when you wake up being groped by this idiot!"

"Hey, you would definitely know if I was groping you," Dave teased. "Oh man, I bet you'd go so red!"

Karkat buried his face in his hands. "I swear to gog, Strider, we have a few good days and suddenly you're acting like nothing ever changed."

He paused, about one metric fuckton of his joy draining out through his feet at the sound of those words. "We had few good weeks, actually," he corrected. "And I thought that we were working on the whole relationship building thing, but if you think we're not—"

Karkat's eyes went wide. "I didn't say that we weren't."

"Well you sounded pretty fucking—"

The troll silenced him with a glare. "Dave Strider, you will shut the fuck up right now and join me for breakfast if you know what's good for you, and you will _forget_ everything that I just said because past me is a complete and utter moron, and we are going to be _happy_."

He blinked. "Fair enough."

"I'll get breakfast!" John decided, already flying for the alchemiter.

"Oh no you won't!" Karkat yelped, shooting to his feet and scrambling after John as he darted away. "You're horrible at cooking; you'll poison us all!"

"Just try and stop me!" came the playful response, and then both of them were vanishing behind the door to the alchemiter, playful bickering audible even from the living room.

 _He basically just said he pitied me,_ Dave thought dazedly. _Of course, then he ran off with John, but hey, he almost said he pitied me!_

"Karkat!" John yelped from the other room. "Get your hands off of my stomach! That tickles!"

His heart twanged with jealousy. _No, no! He pities you. He's called you pathetic, and that's basically like a human calling someone lovable. Not as good as the whole 'I love you' thing, but good enough for now. We're still going slow, after all._

Karkat's voice sliced through the silence. "Don't go for my _horns,_ you fuckass, do you have any idea how rude that is? Hey! Fucking back off!"

Dave bit off the snarl rising in the back of his throat. _Fuck—Striders don't get_ _jealous! Stop that right now, you idiot!_

"Dave, how do pancakes sound?" John chirped, leading Karkat back from the alchemiter with an armful of ingredients.

"As long as Karkat makes them, I'm fine," he jibed with a forced smirk.

"Aww, that's so mean!" But Karkat was already pushing ahead of him and heading for the kitchen, snapping out orders in the liveliest way Dave had heard in weeks. _What's got him so eager?_

"Dave! Get the fuck in here and help!"

Whatever it was, he appreciated it more than he could ever voice.

†††

As night drew closer, Karkat's stomach was in knots.

 _I'm going to do this,_ he thought. _I'm going to tell John about everything that's happened because of me, and it's going to help me get better. I'm not going to wimp the fuck out like I always do. Tonight is the fucking night, gogdamnit!_

He nearly threw up thinking about it.

The day had been pure hell. He'd woken up with Dave pressed into him (which had actually been a really nice way to wake up, not that he'd ever admit it), made breakfast for all three of them in an appropriately begrudging way, then lounged on the couch with Dave and John in an attempt to block out the voices that were just becoming worse and worse with every passing moment. It had mainly been Tavros today, much to his irritation, with splashes of Eridan and Feferi thrown in. It was better than yesterday, which had been dominated by Gamzee.

He was endlessly thankful for Dave and John. He didn't have the emotional maturity to tell either of them how much they meant to him beyond vague comments made in passing, but he valued them endlessly. John had stayed at his bedside every night he hadn't fallen asleep with Dave, watching and waiting for any sign of the nightmares that often woke him with wrenching cries. He'd helped him through everything imaginable, and now he was about to help him through something else. And Dave…well, he thought that maybe he'd forgiven him a long time ago, back after Gamzee had attacked him for real that first time. Back when Dave had rushed into the lab in a panic, reaching for him with that look of pure terror on his face.

 _The fuckass actually cares about me,_ he realized for the hundredth time, shooting Dave a glance. The three of them were still on the couch, and all of them were actually awake at the same time for a change. _He cares about me enough to run to my rescue, that's for sure, even if he makes those snippy comments all the time._

"Karkat, claws!"Dave hissed, and the troll realized that for the second time that day he was digging into the human's thigh with his nails.

"Sorry," he murmured. _He's such a hopeless dumbass…but I guess I'm in way too deep to go back now. My cold, pathetic blood pusher is melting for one Dave Strider, and I'm completely, utterly fucked._ He glanced over at the human. _Fuck._

Karkat jumped as Dave moved suddenly, announcing, "Think I'm gonna go up to bed. Karkles, feeling tired enough to come with me?"

"No!" he snapped immediately. Then he paused, realizing that he was yelling unnecessarily again, and amended, "No, thank you—I'm going to stay up to finish this fantastic movie about…whatever this movie is about!"

Dave raised a brow. "Whatever you say, dude. Just make sure you sleep tonight, got it?"

"You planning on doing something if I don't?" It was needless antagonism, but Dave just smirked in response.

"Hmm…I'm sure I can come up with something that'll help you sleep. I could hold you down, maybe. Try out some of that wrestling shit that Jake's so into. What do you think, Karkles?"

Karkat stared, mouth hanging open, but Dave was already ascending to his bedroom with a laugh that trailed behind him in his wake, not waiting for a response.

 _Gog fucking damn it, that's the person I had to go red for? What a complete fuckass._

After that, he forced himself to wait another hour until he was certain Dave would be asleep. He didn't want anyone interrupting him when he did this. It felt like it took forever, sitting there with John as the movie finished up and the credits rolled. He hadn't really been paying attention; they'd been watching so many movies that he wouldn't have been able to keep them all straight if he tried.

"That's it," John yawned after the credits had finished scrawling across the screen and the final notes of music died away. "Gosh, I'm tired…Karkat, why don't we head to bed? I can stay in your room again since Dave's already asleep."

His stomach flopped over and over. _This is it. I have to say something to initiate it, because he'll never figure it out._

John watched him, expression morphing from exhaustion to confusion. "Karkat? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he forced out. "Just…" His throat closed in on itself. Just _what? Spit it out!_

John's features twisted further into that stupid pitying expression he always got when he thought Karkat was hurting. "Do you need to do that whole talking thing?" he asked softly. "Like, with the pile and stuff?"

"Y-yeah," he choked out, fighting himself with every word. "I think I do."

John was on his feet in a heartbeat, grabbing Karkat off the couch and plunking him down on the pile of blankets and clothing. He kicked the couch out of the way before plopping right down next to him, assuming the position that had become common for these talks—Karkat sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, John lying curled up on his side not a foot from him, fingertips grazing his ankles mindlessly.

"So what's wrong?" John asked once they were situated. "Are you feeling down about something specific, or is it just this whole situation?"

He swallowed hard, thinking that John was _way_ too good at doing the whole moirail thing to _not know_ that he was good at it. "Okay, I am going to say this and you are going to sit there and _listen_ to me. I've been trying to say this to you for at least two weeks already, and I will _not_ wimp the fuck out again!"

John frowned. "Two weeks? Karkat, what's wrong?"

He opened his mouth, and the words dangled on the tip of his tongue. _Just fucking tell him, Vantas! What are you, a coward?_ He forced himself to produce some kind of noise, hoping that once he started vocalizing, the noises would magically turn into the words necessary to tell John that he was responsible for the deaths of almost all of the deceased trolls. But the words didn't come, and he just ended up sitting there making an admittedly pathetic whining noise.

John gasped, exclaiming, "Karkat! Oh no, don't make that noise—what do you need me to do?" His hands hovered over him, wild and helpless, trying to figure out what he should be doing in such an unfamiliar situation.

"Just _listen,"_ he tried to say, but the words came out mangled and barely audible, and John jolted as he no doubt thought that he was about to start crying or something equally embarrassing.

"Oh no!" he repeated, beginning to sound like a broken record. "Um, what am I supposed to…?"

 _You're my fucking moirail, figure it out!_ But that wasn't fair, and he knew it. John had no clue he was acting as his moirail, he couldn't be expected to—

Karkat gasped as a pair of strong arms closed around him, and he was suddenly being dragged down and engulfed in an embrace that was only slightly awkward and a little stiff.

"Um—"

"I'm sorry!" John burst out, interrupting him. He sounded terrified, but he wasn't letting go. If anything he was pulling him closer, hugging him with pale emotion so thick that it almost brought tears stinging to the backs of his eyes. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what to do!"

This would actually be the perfect time to tell John about the whole moirail thing, but Karkat's face was mushed into the human's shoulder to the point where speech was no longer possible. He muttered something indistinguishable, patting at the back of John's shoulders in what he hoped was a comforting way.

"Oh, you can't talk!" John adjusted his hold so that the troll's mouth was no longer caught up on his shirt. "There, is that better?"

"It's fine," Karkat murmured. His hands were still resting on the backs of John's shoulders, and he dug his claws lightly into the fabric of his shirt just because he could, and just because John didn't seem willing to let him go yet.

"No, it's not fine!" the human insisted, and though Karkat couldn't see his face from this angle, he was sure that John was wearing that horribly worried expression he hated so much. "Oh man, I totally just freaked out—this is supposed to be about helping _you,_ and then you made that sound and looked so concerned, and I just didn't know what to do and so I hugged you and now I'm not letting go… _why am I not letting go?"_

 _What the fuck? Is he having some kind of psychotic meltdown?_ He pulled John closer, not quite sure what else to do. "It's okay, fuckass," he ground out. "You don't have to let go."

John spluttered, "But this isn't something that best friends normally do! You don't just drag your best friend onto a pile of blankets and cuddle them, that's not normal! I swear I'm not a homosexual, but I'm _totally_ cuddling you right now and I don't know what to think!"

Karkat's breath caught in his throat. No way…was John about to…?

"I don't know what's wrong with me," John whispered, and Karkat felt his head pressing into his shoulder weakly. "Ever since Dave ditched you and all those horrible nightmares started and you began falling apart, I've just been so conflicted…I swear I'm not romantically attracted to you, but all I want to do is make sure you're okay and stop anything from hurting you and it's _killing_ me, because I don't want to make Dave angry but I don't want to leave you either!"

 _Oh my gog, this is actually happening to me right now._

"I'm sorry, I know that makes no sense and you're probably really weirded out right now…if you want me to just leave, I'll understand. I can go back home and leave you and Dave here, and I don't know how I'll make myself get over all of these weird feelings, but I'll find a way, I swear! You won't have to deal with me and my weird emotions anymore if you don't want to." And then the idiot started to pull back, like he was seriously intent upon leaving, and Karkat _growled._

"If you think you're leaving after that, you're a fucking moron!" he snapped, creating a cage around John with his arms. "You'd better stay right the fuck there; running off after a confession like _that_ would be the worst fucking thing you could do!"

John froze. "No, no, that wasn't a confession! I'm really not attracted to—"

"Dear gog, you're such a fucking idiot," he hissed. "I wasn't going to say anything, you know that? I was going to let you go on totally oblivious to what you were to me, and it was going to be _perfect_ for you and your tiny little human think pan! But then you waltzed in a fucked everything up in the _best fucking way imaginable,_ and how the _fuck_ am I supposed to respond to that with anything but the truth?"

"Karkat, what…?"

"Idiot," he hissed furiously. "You're my _moirail."_

John went completely quiet for a long moment. He just froze, breath shallow with surprise, muscles locked stiff. Then he spoke, and his voice was so soft it was almost inaudible. _"Oh,"_ he whispered. "I am?"

"I mean…" Karkat trailed off, trying to find the right words. "Look, if it makes you uncomfortable, we don't have to call each other that. We can just call each other good friends, and you can keep talking to me like this if you want to and I can help you out whenever you need it, and we can just be that. _Friends."_ Except he really didn't want that, and he knew John could tell.

"But you'd still think of me as your moirail, wouldn't you?" John asked softly.

"Well…yeah. But I wouldn't tell anyone that I thought that unless you wanted me to."

John drew back then, and Karkat let him. The human didn't leave, though—he just sat back, leaving one hand on Karkat's calf as he stared him straight in the face. He was still wearing that ridiculously worried expression. "I…I don't _know_ what I want. Can I even _feel_ the emotions necessary to be a proper moirail?"

"Well you can feel the emotions necessary to be a proper kismesis for Terezi, and none of us thought _that_ was possible—so I'd hazard a guess at saying you're _already feeling_ what's necessary to go pale with me."

"I'm not her actual kismesis!" John protested.

"You _would be_ if she were still on world," Karkat snorted.

John hesitated at that, nails digging lightly into his calf. "Okay…yeah, I think you might be right about that. But assuming that what I'm feeling right now is right for the whole pale romance thing, what am I even supposed to _do?_ I never understood quadrants that well, so what are moirails even supposed to do for their partners?"

He sounded so nervous; it was pathetic. Karkat pitied the shit out of him. "You do what you're doing right now," he said. He wanted to ease John into this as gently as he could. "You talk to me whenever I need it, and you call me whenever you need the same, and we'll work it out. Typically moirails also do, um…" And here he hesitated, not wanting to scare the human off. "…Typically moirails are supposed to do that whole cuddling thing we were just doing. Physical contact helps, I guess."

John didn't look terrified, much to his relief. He looked a little worried, but it didn't seem like a disgusted kind of worry. _This is good._

Or at least it was until that _idiot_ opened his mouth and blurted out, "Are we supposed to kiss?"

 _Yes,_ he thought, keeping his eyes from gravitating to John's lips. No way he could say that to someone as supposedly straight as John, he'd probably go running straight out the door and never come back. "If you want," he decided instead. "It's different for each pair, but typically I'd say the answer is yes. That doesn't mean we have to, though—like I said, it's different for everyone. If you don't feel comfortable, we don't do it. End of story."

John's features twisted into a strange, unreadable expression. "Okay," he said at last. "Okay, I understand."

Karkat waited patiently for something more—acceptance, rejection, _anything—_ but John just sat there, staring back at him awkwardly. "So," he prompted, "what are you thinking?"

John paused. His hand was still on the troll's calf, making light circling motions with his fingertips. "I…think maybe I can try? I mean, if you want me as a moirail."

 _Fucking yes, that's exactly what I want._ "I do. I want you to do that."

"Uh, right…" John blushed, and it was one of the most adorable things Karkat had ever seen in his life. Only Dave's early-morning hair topped it. "I don't know if I'll be very good at this, but I'm willing to do my best!"

"You don't have to do anything differently," Karkat told him. "You've been acting like my moirail for weeks."

"I have?" John squeaked. "Oh no, did anyone notice?"

" _Everyone_ noticed. Except Dave, of course—that guy fucking _astounds_ me with his determination to overlook the obvious."

John giggled. "Yeah, he's a little blind sometimes. But that's why he's my best—!" And then he stopped, expression turning to a mixture of confusion and realization. "Uh, wow—he's not my best friend, is he? Crap, I totally broke up with him best-friend style without even telling him! That's like, super bad!"

"It's fine," Karkat told him. "You don't have to change anything about your relationship with him. I told you, _nothing_ has to change. You're already doing fine."

His eyes lit up and he asked, "Really? You're really sure about that?"

"Jegus, I'm sure!"

"Okay…if you're really certain!" John drew his hand away. For a moment Karkat was worried that he was running off again, that he'd been lying about being okay with this—but then he realized that John was just turning to sit beside him instead, no hesitation in the way he threw an arm around his shoulders and drew him close. And that was when he realized that something _had_ changed. Despite his ardent insistence that nothing would be altered, John already seemed more relaxed than he had in weeks. He wondered if the pale tension between them had been eating at John as severely as it had been eating at him, and if that was the source of his sudden relief.

"So," John said, breaking the comfortable silence. "You were trying to tell me something before I freaked out, weren't you? Are you ready to talk about it?"

 _That's right…_ He'd forgotten about telling John about his guilt amidst the sudden and unexpected confessions. Could he really say anything now, dampen the mood that was so light between them?

"Karkat?"

Yes. He could, and he had to. _John is my moirail now,_ he reminded himself. _It's his job to take on my pain, and it's my job to take on his. He can handle this._ "Yes…I need to talk to you about something."

John's fingers played idly with the fabric of his shirt. "Shoot, then," he said. "I'm all ears."

 _I can do this. I can tell him. The air is cleared between us for the first time in fucking_ forever, _and it's the perfect time to finally tell him about all this shit that's been twisting my pan forever._ "I…"

And then, suddenly, the entire house shook with the loudest roar Karkat had ever heard.

Both of them were on their feet in an instant, John crying out, "What on earth was that?"

Karkat staggered as his hive _literally_ shook, the windows and doors trembling as something akin to an earthquake passed over it. There was a loud boom from outside, and he gasped as he was nearly knocked over by the consequent shock wave.

A flash of red appeared at the top of the stairs. "Dude, what the fuck is going on down there?"

"That wasn't _us!_ " John protested, flying up into the air as not to be knocked down by the rumbling floor. "Something happened outside!"

"Well then let's go kick its ass!" Dave snapped. "I was having the _best_ fucking dream…"

John made for the door. But then he paused, looking back to Karkat, and ordered, "Stay here!"

"Like hell I'll stay here!" the troll snapped. "I can handle this just as well as you!" Well, that probably wasn't entirely true, but there was no way he was staying put. "And besides, what happened to not leaving me alone?"

"Dave, you can stay—"

"No fucking way _I'm_ staying!"

John looked from Dave to Karkat, no doubt hoping for some way out. But finding none, he was forced to relent, "Okay, _fine—_ but Karkat, stay back!"

"I absolutely will _not_ stay back!"

But John was already flying into the front yard, Dave hot on his heels, and so Karkat dashed after them without hesitation. His sickles were in his hands, though he wasn't sure how much help he'd be in a serious fight.

He gasped as he stepped outside. The sky should have been midnight blue, seeing as it was fucking _midnight,_ but instead it was streaked with horrendous gray and lime green. There was a massive swirl of the hideous color in the sky not far off their house, formed into an almost _portal_ -like structure.

"What the fuck is _that?"_ Dave breathed. He was floating several feet up in the air, shades reflecting the lime green streaks.

"I don't know," John whispered in return. "It's so _bright…"_

The two of them started to drift forward, entranced, as Karkat followed them cautiously on foot. He didn't like this. Something about that color…

Then he froze, locked into place in a mixture of shock and confusion as he realized that it wasn't the _color_ that was bothering him, it was the dull haze of electricity tinting the air around them. He _knew_ that haze. He _knew_ that power—which was how he knew that it was warming up, preparing to blast them all off the face of the planet.

"What's that feeling?" John murmured, eyes wide and sightless. "Like…electricity."

 _Fuck, this is bad._ "John, Dave—!"

"It's warm," Dave agreed, visibly dazed.

" _Listen_ to me, you idiots!" Karkat roared, scrambling towards them. The power was crackling in the air around them now, hissing threateningly. A low snarl cut through the haze, and he cried out, "Get down _now!"_ He hooked his fingers around John's ankle, then Dave's, and yanked them down to the ground as hard as he could.

It was just in time. The instant the three of them were pressed flat to the ground, a burst of purplish energy roared over the area where they'd been standing a heartbeat before.

And that, at least, was enough to snap the two humans out of it.

"What the fuck?" Dave yelped, moving to scramble to his feet.

"Stay down!" Karkat snarled, yanking him back down. "He'll kill you in a heartbeat if he sees you, seeing as he's obviously not in his right mind!"

"What?" John whispered. "Who is it? You _know_ that thing, Karkat?"

"Not a fucking _thing_ ," he corrected. "A _troll."_

"A troll?" John asked. "Is Terezi back? Or…is Kanaya attacking us for some reason?"

"No," he hissed. "It's—!" His voice died in his throat as a familiar burst of energy closed over his throat, and he next moment he was being hauled up into the air and thrown back like a ragdoll.

"Karkat!" John cried, lurching to his feet just in time for a tendril of red power to wrap around his waist and fling him in the other direction. He caught himself easily with his ability to fly, but Dave wasn't so lucky—a blue tendril snagged him around the ankle and slammed him into the side of Karkat's hive.

Karkat staggered to his feet, sickles clenched tight in his hands in preparation to defend himself from the hazy shape drifting towards him in a cocoon of purplish power. It wouldn't be any use—he knew that his assailant could rip him apart with that devastating power of his.

A prickle of power ran up his spine, and he had just enough time to realize he was in trouble before a coil of energy was clamping down on his neck and lifting him for a second time, this time letting him dangle as the hazy form drifted closer.

"Sollux!" Karkat choked, clawing desperately at the intangible power. "Sollux, please—!"

The other troll just stared. His single working eye was blank, and his face was slack with lack of recognition. He had no clue who he was, or he didn't care.

"Sollux, _please!"_

He just bared his teeth and tightened his hold, and Karkat gasped as his pan started to go haywire.

Things, he had a feeling, were about to go horribly, horribly wrong.


	13. Sollux: Fuck it Up

**Hiveswap who? Release date what?**

 **Chapter 13:** **Sollux: Fuck it Up**

* * *

By the time Dave dragged himself to his feet, the strange figure had Karkat by the throat in a death grip, and his eyes were just starting to roll back in his head.

"Karkat!" he gasped out, and the next moment he was flash stepping up behind the figure and stabbing at him viciously with his sword. But the figure was gone in a heartbeat, most likely having sensed the weapon coming up behind him, and Dave bristled with alarm when the blade of his weapon stuck into the side of the house about three inches from Karkat's head. The troll didn't seem to mind, though—he was too busy sliding down the wall and crashing to the ground, choking for breath. He was alive, at least, even if his throat was already bruising a sharp, reddish purple.

"Karkat," he prompted, kneeling beside him and clasping a hand to his shoulder. "Fuck, dude, are you okay?"

The troll flailed a hand at him, clearly lacking the ability to speak. And at the same time, not far behind him, John let out a cry. "Dave, help!"

He swung around to see the strange, hazy figure battering John with swipes of red and blue power. His hammer was out, clutched between shaking fingers as he struggled to fend off blasts of energy that he could barely even see.

 _Fuck!_ He darted up into the air and flew towards John at top speed. He thought he heard Karkat make some kind of sound as he flew off, maybe trying to tell him something, but he didn't have time to stop and listen to him try to force out a complete sentence. John was struggling, crouching low to the ground as furious swipes of energy passed overhead. He yelped as one of them caught him in the chest and sent him flying.

"Hang on, dude!" Dave darted up behind the person and swung at him again, but once again he was met with the same result. He flickered and then practically vanished, moving impossibly fast and reappearing several feet away. Tendrils of electric power closed around his ankle and _yanked,_ and all the breath was knocked out of him as his back struck the ground with considerable force. What _was_ this guy? Karkat had said he was a troll, but he was so obscured by the haze that he couldn't make out any distinguishing features. He thought he maybe recognized the whole red and blue powers thing, but he couldn't quite remember which troll had used them.

A blast of wind let him know that John was back on his feet. "Dave, I'll distract him! You knock him out while he's confused!"

He didn't think that was going to work, but he still called back an affirmative and crouched low as John flew in. Wind roared around him like a hurricane wherever he moved, sweeping in circles and twisting with unrestrained playfulness across the tall grass. The force of the gale actually managed to dissipate some of the power hanging around the mysterious troll, and for just a moment Dave thought he caught a single flickering eye staring blankly out at him.

John didn't let up. The force of the wind only intensified, sweeping more and more of the haze away, and the figure actually appeared to be feeling it. He recoiled, blurry hands lashing out blindly as he swayed in the midst of the storm John was creating.

"Come on," John hissed, "go down!" He jerked his hands downwards, the wind snapping to obey his command, and the figure let out a roar as he was suddenly dragged towards the earth. "Dave, now!"

He obeyed with a sharp lunge forward as John bore down on the troll with all his power. He cringed the instant he entered the gale, nearly flattened along with the troll—but then John let up on him just slightly, and he moved forward with a cry. His sword gouged along the earth, grass and dirt flying up and disappearing into the wind. _I've got you now!_

Except he didn't, and the figure let him _know_ that he didn't with a snap of his wrist that both deprived him of his sword and flung him up to become caught in the hurricane swirling beneath John's fingertips.

"Oh no!" John gasped. He released the gale immediately, which would have been great except for the fact that being flung around by John's windy powers had already made him _so fucking dizzy_ that he crashed straight into the ground before he could figure out how to fly again. As the icing on the cake, the troll was free again, and his power was bearing down upon them stronger than ever.

"This isn't working," Dave gasped, breath knocked out of him for the umpteenth time. "John, we need a plan!"

John darted to his side and hauled him up, agreeing, "Yeah, but what are we supposed to do? We don't know anything about this guy's weaknesses! We have to—!"

"John, Dave! Get down!"

Both humans looked up in surprise as a blur of gray streaked by, sickles flashing as they swiped desperately at the figure. The two ducked down just in time to avoid the blast of power that Karkat had no doubt seen coming.

"Dude!" Dave snapped, lurching back to his feet and making a dash for Karkat, who was going toe to toe with the other troll. "Get away from there! Your throat—!"

"I'm fine," the troll snarled. "And besides, I'm _not_ letting this asshat tear you idiots limb from limb!"

"You know him?" John asked, rising back up into the air. "Wait, that was stupid, of course you know him! Which troll is he, again?"

Karkat hissed as he dodged another tendril of power, throwing one of his sickles up at the other troll like a boomerang. It actually managed to _hit_ him, too, grazing his cheek and falling to the grass just in time for Karkat to scoop it back up. "His name is Sollux Captor," he spat out, "and he's a real fucking pain in the ass!"

"Forget who he is, how do we take him down?"

Karkat laughed bitterly. "You think I know? The guy only ever lost a few fights, and all of _those_ were to crazed highbloods with either magic wands or psychic powers! If he has any other weaknesses, I don't know them!" He slashed at Sollux's ankles, roaring, "Hey, Captor! What the fuck crawled up your nook and died? We're on your side, fuckass!"

"Speak for yourself," Dave snarked.

"You don't know how to beat him?" John repeated, completely ignoring Dave. "What are we supposed to do, then? He's so powerful!"

"You think he's powerful _now?"_ Karkat snapped. "He's not even _trying,_ you idiots! If he really wanted to, he could have ripped us all apart with a look!"

"He's toying with us?" John yelped. "Seriously?"

Karkat leapt back as a tendril of power gouged the earth at his feet. Sollux appeared to have forgotten that John and Dave were even _there—_ he seemed completely fixated on Karkat, hovering after him wherever he went and taking random swipes at him. "He's not in his right mind," the troll explained. "I'm not sure what's fried his think pan, but this is _not_ normal!" Then he yelped as Sollux blasted him in the chest, flattening him momentarily to the ground.

"Karkat, hang on!" John darted forward to help, but Sollux batted him away with a snarl. Dave moved to do the same, hoping to get in under the other troll's defenses and jab his sword up through his gut, but received the same treatment.

Karkat snorted even as he was forced to dive to one side to avoid being flattened again. "Oh yeah, he's not trying at all. You'd be fucking _dead_ if he'd put his whole think pan into that attack."

"Trying or not, we need him _gone,"_ Dave said. "Karkat, tell us what we're supposed to do! You know the guy, you must know how to take him down!"

The troll shook his head. "I know you think I'm the best fucking tactician on the planet, but I'm really not that great!"

Sollux growled, and then both Dave and John were recoiling under the force of a powerful wave of energy.

"Those fucking psionics," Karkat hissed. "Such a pain in the ass; I fucking hate this guy! Drives me up the wall, always has!" Then he yelped as Sollux zapped him, no doubt in response to his irritated comments. "Okay, that's _it!"_ He heaved himself up with all his strength and hooked a sickle into the other troll's foot.

The reaction was instantaneous. Tendrils of red and blue curled around Karkat's body and tried to fling him away, but every tug only pulled the sickle further into Sollux's foot. A roar sounded as a blast of psionics wrecked the land around them, flattening grass and cracking tree trunks.

"Get down here, you moron!" Karkat braced his feet against the grass and _tugged,_ managing to wrap his fingers around Sollux's ankle and using it to haul him to the ground. Psionics crackled around them both, but it was obvious to all onlookers that Sollux wasn't really trying to hurt him. Whatever haze Sollux had been left in by that gaping hole in the sky, it seemed to already be fading—he was beginning to look more confused than malicious, and the spare lashes of power were fading more and more with every moment. "That's it, you complete and utter wreck, snap the fuck out of it!"

 _Tactful,_ Dave thought with amusement, watching Karkat wrestle Sollux to the ground and slap him in the face repeatedly, all previous weakness forgotten in the face of danger. _Real tactful, Karkles._

It worked, though. The seeming insanity that had gripped Sollux mere minutes before seemed to be dissipating with every moment, and the crackle of psionics in the air around them sputtered with every infuriated slap.

"Woah, woah!" John gasped, flying towards them. "Karkat, he's not fighting you anymore! Stop punching him!"

He did—but it was just to look back at John and snap, "He fucking deserves it! Have you _seen_ my neck?"

Dave winced as he spotted the vicious red ring that really _was_ bruising, turning a nasty purple as he perched atop Sollux.

"Well…" John tried, "you don't have to beat him up any more! It looks like he's done trying to attack us!"

Karkat snorted. "Yeah, okay, I'll stop. Just let me…" He wound up and decked Sollux straight in the temple, and the psionic's body went completely limp. "There," he said, satisfied. "Now I can stop beating him up. Happy?"

John stared. Dave bit back a laugh. It seemed that after weeks of Karkat acting deflated and moody, all it had taken was a good fight to get him going again.

"Now," Karkat bit out, climbing off Sollux and getting to his feet. "The wiggler's probably already returned to his normal state of mind, if the end of that fight has anything to say about it, but we should still get him to the lab and lock him up. Who knows what's going on in that twisted think pan of his?"

Dave couldn't hide his laugh this time, despite the dull throb starting to overtake his battered form. "Yeah, sounds good to me, dude. Want me to carry him?"

"If you want to drop him a few times I'm sure he wouldn't notice," the troll suggested.

"I'll take that as a yes." Dave flew up to the unconscious troll and knelt at his side. Now that he wasn't surrounded by that dull haze of power, he could really take a good look at the guy. He was small, actually—scrawnier than Karkat, but just a bit taller. He recognized him a little, remembered that he'd been the one that helped the red fairy troll send the meteor on its way, but he was still completely foreign. They hadn't even had one conversation. Now, looking at him, he could see that bruises littered his face and arms, showing signs that his life hadn't exactly been a cake walk before he showed up through whatever that lime green portal had been. He looked like he'd been through hell. And speaking of the portal…

Dave looked up at the sky. The odd colors had faded, though, not a flicker of green left in the sky. _Strange…what_ was _that thing?_

"Dave," Karkat prompted roughly. " _Before_ he wakes up would be nice. If he decides he actually wants to hurt us next time, we'll all be fucking dead."

He shuddered. "Yeah, okay. Sure." He scooped the troll up. "Hope Rose is in the lab, because I have no clue where she keeps the chains."

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, just go!" Then he turned his gaze on John. "Um…I guess we'll continue our discussion later."

John blushed. "Okay, I…I'd like that."

Dave looked between them with a frown. What discussion could have made John blush like that? Had something _happened_ between the two of them? Was John trying to make a move?

 _No, no, no—you can't think like that right now, there are more important things at hand._

"Dave," Karkat groaned, "are you just going to stand there all night?"

He jolted. "No, no, I'm coming." He flew forward, John and Karkat not far behind, trying not to feel as though John was stepping on what he had with the troll.

It wasn't working.

†††

The instant they walked into the lab, chaos exploded around them.

"Oh my goodness!" Kanaya gasped. "Karkat, is that _Sollux?"_

He nodded as Dave passed the unconscious troll over to Kanaya, who immediately carried him to one of the lab tables and laid him down. "The idiot just showed up out of nowhere, falling out of some green portal thing in the sky."

"Really?" she asked, cocking her head. Then she turned, calling, "Rose! Rose, we need you here!"

Rose appeared almost immediately. "Kanaya, what's—?" She paused. "Oh! Who's this?"

"Sollux," Karkat supplied, pushing past Dave and John to stand at the forefront of the conversation. "He fucking _attacked_ us when he came through a magical green portal in the sky, so I punched him until he passed out."

Kanaya shook her head. "Again, Karkat? You two have always bickered so terribly!"

"Not as much as him and Eridan," the troll grumbled. "Those two were insufferable."

"Yes, in a different way."

"Kanaya," Rose said, "will you please fetch the medical supplies from the cabinet? I'm going to start removing his clothing so I can treat his wounds better."

"Of course." Kanaya pulled two bags out of a cabinet and tossed one to Rose. "Karkat, come over here. I'm going take care of your injuries."

"John and Dave are worse, treat them first."

Kanaya sighed, chastising, "You all look like you've been through a blender, which isn't surprising seeing as it was a psionic you were going up against. But still, your neck concerns me. Come here so I can help, and then I'll tend to your friends."

He grumbled in irritation, but took only a few moments to stalk across the room and hop up onto the table Kanaya indicated.

"You went up against Sollux," Kanaya said again. "A psionic. If he was truly attempting to kill you, how are you not more severely injured?

"How did _Eridan_ not come away more severely injured every time he went up against the wiggler?" Karkat muttered.

"Eridan was a seadweller, and one of the toughest fighters I've ever seen. You certainly aren't weak, Karkat, but you're considerably easier to topple than Eridan—and the humans are too squishy to hold their own against a full-force psionic attack."

He winced as Kanaya took to his throat with sterilizing liquid. "He wasn't really trying to kill us, I think."

"Really? Why not?"

Karkat shrugged. "Whatever got his think pan twisted enough to attack us, it didn't seem to damage him enough to make him really want to kill us. He was just lashing out blindly—and beside that, his disorientation seemed to fade fast. By the end, he wasn't even trying to hit me anymore."

"Right," Dave huffed from where he was standing at Sollux's side. "The guy nearly choked you out and you think he wasn't trying to kill you."

"That was child's play!" he snapped in return. "I told you, if he wanted to kill us we'd be fucking _dead!"_

"Kanaya," Rose interrupted, "pass me the antiseptic."

She did. Then she turned back to Karkat, asking, "Should he be restrained? If he awakens with the intent to attack us again, it would be beneficial to have him immobile."

"That sounds real fucking great," Karkat confirmed. "Though I have a feeling he won't be doing much attacking once he wakes up. He seemed pretty docile right before I knocked him out."

Rose hummed. "What interests me is how he got here in the first place. You say a portal appeared in the sky?"

"That's what it looked like," John chimed in. "When we went outside, there was this lime-green swirl up in midair. It looked like he fell right out of it."

"Lime green…" Rose tapped her fingers against the table thoughtfully. "Dave, did it look like—?"

"The green sun," he confirmed. "Yeah, it did."

"The green sun?" Karkat echoed abrasively. "I thought that thing was blown the fuck up!"

"Sucked into a black hole," Rose corrected. "A black hole that then took on the color of the sun it destroyed. At least, that's what Terezi's reports suggest."

Kanaya's head tilted just slightly to one side. "That's quite strange. What could have caused a portal sharing qualities with the black hole to appear in the sky? And how did Sollux survive being sucked through it, if that is indeed what happened?"

"We'll just have to wait for him to wake up," Rose said. She'd already stripped Sollux down to his boxers, and was going around dabbing at his cuts and bruises with antiseptic.

"I suppose you're right," was Kanaya's soft response. "Karkat, hold still!"

"It hurts!" he complained, wincing as Kanaya's cool fingers rubbed some kind of ointment onto his throat.

"Hold still!" she repeated in a hiss. When she finally removed her fingers, she asked, "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Just bruises and minor scratches," he muttered. "So go help John and Dave!"

Kanaya sighed. "Very well. John, Dave, do you require medical attention?"

They exchanged looks. "Maybe just for the cuts?" John suggested, rubbing at a place on his cheek where something had sliced into his skin.

"Yeah," Dave agreed. "If you don't mind."

Kanaya beckoned them close as Karkat stepped back, going for Sollux. The troll was still unconscious, looking far more peaceful in sleep than he _ever_ had while awake.

"Karkat," Rose addressed him as he neared, "there's a drawer over there under the place where Kanaya retrieved the medical supplies. It should contain a set of ropes that we can use to bind Sollux to the table until we know he won't attack us. Would you please bring them here and help me tie him down?"

"You're not going to put his clothes back on?" he asked, even as he grabbed the rope and tossed a coil of the stuff at her.

Rose sighed. Then she was moving, and a moment later Sollux was back in his usual clothing. "Is that better?"

He didn't answer. He just snatched up part of the rope and started winding it around the psionic's ankles, looping it beneath the table so that he wouldn't be able to wrench free. Meanwhile, Rose hooked the rope around his wrists before repeating the process around his chest. It was a bit of a joke, really—if he wanted to, Sollux could burst the ropes with his psionics the instant he woke up. But they had to try something, and this was the best they could do under the circumstances.

"There," Rose announced. "He's not going anywhere. Now, do you have any idea of when he may awaken?"

"I don't fucking know," Karkat snapped. "I punched him as hard as I could, so maybe a few hours? A day?"

Rose's eye twitched. "You seem no better than the last time we spoke. Did you do as I asked?"

"Be quiet!" he hissed, throwing a glance over his shoulder. Both John and Dave were preoccupied, though, both of them whining as Kanaya dabbed stinging liquid onto their cuts. "No," he admitted to Rose, reassured that the boys weren't listening. "Not yet."

"Karkat…"

"I was about to! I was about to bare my fucking soul to the guy, but then _this_ fuckass showed up outside my hive and ruined everything!"

"I see. And will you be repeating your attempt to talk to John sometime in the near future?"

Karkat fidgeted uncomfortably. "Yeah, as soon as Dave leaves us alone for a few minutes."

She gave an approving nod. "Good."

"Fucking _ow!"_ Dave hissed loudly, voice slicing the still air.

"Hold still!" Kanaya countered. "Your squirming is making you bleed more!"

Karkat bit back an amused snort. _What an idiot._

"Do you think you'll be returning home tonight?" Rose asked. "Or will you be staying here in case your friend awakens?"

Karkat briefly considered going home. _No fucking way I can wait around in that place knowing that Sollux is over here. The idiot could wake up at any time, and I should be here to beat the shit out of him if he does._ "I'm staying here," he decided. "John and Dave can do what they want."

Rose nodded. "In that case, I'm going to send them home. They could use the rest, and I get the feeling that you and Kanaya should speak with Sollux alone."

He gave a begrudging nod. "Thank you, but good luck convincing them to go home."

Her eyes narrowed. "I know a few tricks."

†††

Sollux awoke approximately five hours later, right when the suns were starting to rise above the horizon.

"Kanaya!" Karkat called the instant he saw the warning signs. "He's up!"

Kanaya appeared in a heartbeat. "Sollux?"

The battered troll just groaned, trying to roll onto his side despite the ropes holding him down. He hissed, feeling the rough material binding him to the table, and groaned out, "What the fuck ith going on?"

Karkat had to bite back a growl the instant he heard his voice. "You fucking _attacked_ me and my friends, you idiot! Don't tell me you don't remember!"

Kanaya shot him a glance. "Now Karkat, you yourself said that he wasn't in his right mind. Let's give him a chance to explain himself."

He agreed with a vicious hiss. " _Fine._ What do you have to say for yourself, _Thollukth?"_

The troll sneered, but it was obvious that he was still in the realm between not quite asleep and not quite awake. "Fuck you, KK." Then he paused. "Wait…KK?"

 _"Yes,_ you insufferable bulgelicker!"

Sollux frowned. His face was a mess of confusion, single good eye flicking about in an attempt to put together just where he'd been laid out. "I made it?" he asked finally. "I made it to the new world?"

Karkat snarled, but Kanaya cut him off with a gentle, "Yes, Sollux, you're safe. We're all a bit baffled, though—how did you get here?"

"Oh, that'th eathy…" But then he trailed off in confusion. "Wait…how _did_ I get here? I can't…"

"Oh, that's just fucking great," Karkat snapped. "Don't tell me that weird black hole in the sky scrambled your think pan beyond recovery!"

"Black hole…" he whispered. "There wath a black hole, and…a methage I was thuppothed to give you?" He groaned, turning his head from side to side miserably. "Fuck, I can't remember!"

"That's okay," Kanaya soothed. "It may take time to piece together your memories. For now, can you remember anything at all about what you've been doing for the past few months? Namely, why you haven't contacted us despite having been alive?"

He shook his head. "I'm thorry, KN, I don't…" He hesitated. "Actually, I think there wath thomeone elthe with me…and…they didn't want me to contact you yet…? But…then they changed their mind, I think…"

"Terezi?" Kanaya guessed with a frown. "But why would she not want you to contact us?"

Sollux shook his head again. "I don't know. It could have been TZ, I gueth, but I jutht can't remember! It'th like…the patht few weekth have just been erathed"

"Calm down," Kanaya urged. "Is there anything else you recall?"

He paused, singular eye staring into nothing. Then, "I think we were looking for thomeone…and I remember that whatever I was thuppothed to be doing, it was really important. Like, there are going to be theriouth fucking conthequentheth if I can't remember."

Karkat snorted. "Oh gog, say that again— _consequences._ You sound fucking ridiculous."

"Fuck off, KK!"

"Boys!" Kanaya snapped, pushing Karkat away from the table. "Stop that!"

Karkat shrank away. "Sorry."

"Thorry," Sollux echoed.

Kanaya just shook her head, pinching at the bridge of her nose with two fingers. "It seems obvious to me that continuing to push you while you're weak isn't going to wield any information. I think for now you'll be better off resting for a while longer, preferably somewhere a little less stressful than here. Hopefully you'll remember more in a little while. With that being said, then, I suppose we should move on to what comes next."

"What comes next?" Karkat repeated. "Why, is something wrong?"

"Well, Sollux can't just live in the lab. Where are we going to put him while he recovers?"

"I can make my own hive," Sollux reminded them. "I'm weak right now, but I'll be fine after a little retht."

"Yes, but before you get that rest we'll have to have somewhere for you to stay."

"I can't jutht thtay here or thome shit?"

"You can, but I strongly advise that you don't."

"Why not?"

"You don't want to stay here, dude," Karkat broke in. "Trust me, it's no fun being the third wheel around an interspecies couple."

Sollux blinked. "Oh." Then he looked to the doorway, where Rose had vanished the instant he'd started to wake up. _"Oh._ Really?"

"Really."

He blushed a deep mustard yellow. "Tho what are my other optionth?"

Kanaya came to the rescue. "If you'd like, you can stay in the hive that I built with Rose. We don't live there at the moment, seeing as we're spending all of our time working here in the lab, so you're welcome to stay there until you have the chance to build your own hive. After you've stayed there for a few days, we can meet again and talk about what you remember in more detail. I'm sure Rose will be very interested in what you have to say. That is, as sure as you're sure you're not going to attack anyone!"

Sollux gave a dazed shake of the head. "No, no…whatever it wath that had me when I got here, it'th gone now. I feel completely normal. So if you'll jutht tell me where your hive is…"

"Right next to my place," Karkat informed him with a smirk. "Hope you're ready to see a whole fucking lot more of me, Captor."

He sneered, but there was a familiar flicker of anticipation behind his supposed anger. "Jutht like old timeth?"

"With a healthy dose of crazy."

He answered with a smirk. "So _jutht_ like old times. Tell me, KK, are you thtill obthethed with those shitty movieth? Thtill drooling over actorth without being able to get any yourthelf?"

He growled low in his throat, biting out, "I have a fucking moirail, you bifurcated freakshow! _And_ a potential matesprit!" Or was Dave actually his matesprit at this point? He just couldn't tell.

"Potential, eh? What'th wrong, KK, too nervouth to make a move?"

"Like you've done any better," he hissed, bristling from head to toe. "You had Feferi, sure, but the only other person even remotely interested in you was a homicidal fish troll with a superiority complex!"

"That wathn't even proper blackrom," Sollux snorted. "The shithead jutht flat out hated me, nothing romantic about it."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, it fucking ith!"

Then they just stared at each other, both sporting expressions of relief. After so long apart, both were relieved to see that absolutely nothing had changed. Their endless bickering remained a comforting constant, even after all this time.

Kanaya cleared her throat politely. "If you two are quite done…"

The two broke eye contact with equal measures of embarrassment.

"Right," Kanaya sighed. "Karkat, I want you to go find Rose. She should be in the next room over. You should wait with her while I explain a few things to Sollux."

"Ehehe…" Sollux let out one of his infuriating little laughs. "How'th it feel being thent out of the room like a wiggler, KK?"

Karkat opened his mouth to snarl a response, but Kanaya beat him to it. _"Sollux._ If you want to pursue this later, then you're free to do so. But for now, there are a few things about the previous months that we need to discuss." She turned her gaze on Karkat. "Please leave us."

He didn't protest. Knowing Kanaya, she was just going to tell Sollux that his former best friend was completely insane and couldn't be left alone for a moment; just generally fill him in on how fucking _crazy_ he was. He didn't need to be there for that.

"Call me when you're done," he grumbled, shuffling his way out of the room. Sollux only looked a little hurt, he thought.

†††

"So…"

Karkat didn't even spare the other troll a glance. "So."

Sollux said nothing else for a long moment. They just walked side by side, dead leaves and dried grass crunching underfoot as they made their way towards Sollux's temporary hive. They were already close, having made their way through the center of town some time ago.

"You really flipped right the fuck off the handle, didn't you?" Sollux said finally.

Karkat bared his teeth, but the gesture came off more as weary than angry. "What if I did?"

"Come on, KK…you have a _moirail_ for thingth like thith. Why the fuck haven't you been talking to him?"

"None of your fucking business," he snapped.

"You should really—"

"What are you, my lusus?"

Sollux went quiet. Then, "No, I gueth not. But fuck, KK, you thound more fucked up than me right now. Sure you're gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine. I was actually _trying_ to talk to my moirail about all this shit when your lame ass blasted a hole in the sky and fell right into our fucking front yard."

"Fuck you, that wathn't my fault!"

"Like hell it wasn't, you bulegsniffing bee-fucker!"

"Better than being a candy-blooded mutant!"

"Still better than being a duality-obsessed freakshow!"

"Eheheh…fair enough." Sollux smirked at him with those ridiculous fangs. "Tho I gueth we'll be theeing a lot more of each other now, huh?"

"Your fucking _absurd_ lisp will have the chance to annoy me twice as often as it used to," he agreed with a sneer.

"Then I'll have to drag you out of the armth of your _potential_ matethprit enough to make it three timeth," the psionic countered.

Karkat glared. "You're so fucking annoying, I _swear."_

"Yeah," Sollux agreed. "I mithed you too, KK."

 _Fuck him_. _Fuck him_ and his stupid ability to decode his furious ranting. "Shut the fuck up!"

He cackled, sounding far too much like Terezi. "You know you hate me."

"The day I stop hating you is the day I prostrate myself before the nonexistent drones and beg to be culled."

Sollux's smirk widened, and the rest of their journey passed in silence.

†††

Later that evening, Dave cornered Karkat in the kitchen long enough to ask him about the events that had transpired in the lab. The troll had been exhausted when he'd come back, crashing on the couch without telling either him or John what had happened or how Sollux had been dealt with. Both Dave and John had waited around for him to wake up, but John had dozed off before it happened. That meant that Dave was on his own, looming over Karkat as he tried to make himself something to eat.

"So," he said coolly.

Karkat eyed him. His hands were at work preparing what appeared to be a sandwich with oddly colored meat. "Is something wrong?"

"Not in particular." He leaned against the counter, getting as close as he could. "So, what happened with Sollux?"

He could see the way Karkat tensed, shoulders hitching just slightly higher. "Nothing much. He woke up and Kanaya sent him to live in her hive for the time being."

"So he's living there now?" Dave questioned, hair standing on end as he thought of the person that had _attacked_ them and nearly choked Karkat to death living next door. "As in, he's in the house right next to ours."

"Yep. Real fucking exciting, isn't it?"

"That's one word for it." He watched as Karkat took a knife to the completed sandwich and sliced it in two. "You're not worried at all that he'll attack us again?"

"No," was the immediate response. "Trust me on this, Dave—Sollux isn't going to do anything to hurt you or John."

"And what about _you?"_

He paused. "He won't hurt me any more than is usual for these kinds of things."

"What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Karkat was fidgeting with the knife now, running his thumb up and down the flat of the blade. He looked nervous. "Dave, trolls don't work the same way humans do."

"I know that."

"We have quadrants."

He shuddered. The quadrant system had always confused him, and he hated it completely. "Mhmm, I know about that too. A real disturbing way to do things, if you ask me."

Karkat's eyes flashed with hurt. "It's just how we are! We can't fucking change it!"

"Yeah, I understand that, but that doesn't mean you couldn't just refuse to fill your other quadrants out of courtesy to your matesprit." _To me._

"You'd want me to be unhappy?"

That made him pause. "Well, no…but you don't need anyone else if you have me, right? I can do all that stuff for you."

Karkat stared. "Am I your best friend?"

"Um…what?"

"Am I your best friend?" he repeated, voice deathly calm.

Was this a trick question? "No, dude, John is my best friend."

"Exactly. I couldn't be your best friend because I'm your—" And here he paused, looking uncertain. "I'm your _whatever the fuck I am,_ and that's not the same thing as a best friend. You telling me not to take a moirail or a kismesis is like me telling you that you have to ditch all of your friends and never take new ones."

"That's not the same thing at all!" he protested. "I don't sleep with my best friends!"

Karkat cocked his head, asking, "So it's just the concupiscent quadrants you have a problem with? You don't want me to have a kismesis?"

"Well, no—every quadrant requires love, right? That means that if you have more than one quadrant filled, you're in love with more than one person. That's kinda messed up in human terms."

"Not really," Karkat snapped back, becoming visibly agitated. "There's a difference between the love you feel for your human parents and the love you feel for your human significant other."

"Woah, using the human terms and everything?" Dave teased.

Karkat bristled. "That's not the point!"

Dave threw up his hands in exasperation. "The _point_ is, the quadrant system just makes me uncomfortable!"

"Well it has to _not_ make you uncomfortable, because trolls aren't happy unless they fill as many quadrants as they can!"

"Creeps me out," Dave muttered. "I swear, dude, you're—"

Karkat dropped the knife onto the counter with a clatter, and Dave nearly jumped out of his skin. "Okay, we are working this out right the fuck now. Because if you're going to be a wiggler about this, then—"

Dave jerked up his hands again, this time in horror. "No way, dude! Talk to me about your weird quadrants later, because I am _not_ going to deal with this right now."

Karkat just stared, mouth opening and closing with silent splutters. "But—!"

"No buts, Karks. I didn't come in here to get a lecture about your creepy polyamorous bullshit. I've got shit to do, so I'm out!"

The troll was still staring, mouth hanging open, but Dave didn't give the expression a second thought. The guy would get over it, he thought. He'd realize that having more than one quadrant filled at a time was kind of a deal breaker for humans.

Karkat would choose him over having other quadrants, he was sure. It was only a matter of time.


	14. Karkat: Mental Breakdown

**Chapter 14:** **Karkat: Mental Breakdown**

* * *

The next morning, Karkat pounced on John the moment he was awake.

"We're having a feelings jam tonight," he informed him. "We're going to finish talking about what we were getting into before Sollux attacked us, and we're not leaving that fucking pile until we do."

John just looked up at him with bleary eyes, having barely gotten out of bed. "M'kay…Karkat, did something happen? You seem really keyed up."

He bristled just _thinking_ about the infuriating conversation he'd had with Dave in the kitchen late last night. That fuckass was just _so fucking oblivious._ "Dave said something stupid," he ground out. "Don't worry, you'll hear all about it tonight." He turned on heel for the door, stalking away like an indignant cat.

"Hey, wait!" John called. "Where are you going?"

His reply was short and clipped. "I'm going to see Sollux."

†††

"Wow," Sollux said after Karkat had explained the whole situation to him. "The idiot doethn't believe in the quadrant thythtem at all, huh?"

"Not one bit," Karkat ground out. He threw piece of popcorn at Sollux, who retaliated by flinging the bowl at him with his psionics. "Hey!" he yelped.

Sollux ignored him. "That'th really rough, KK. What are you going to do?"

"Fuck if I know," he huffed. He was too busy picking popcorn out of his hair to bother thinking about it too hard.

"What, you think you're jutht going to abandon your moirail and your _potential_ kithmethith that I'm jutht _sure_ is floating around out there thomewhere?"

He glared. "I don't fucking know! I mean, _fuck—_ I can't ditch John because of this!"

"Nah," Sollux agreed. Power sparked between his horns, and the next moment Karkat was squawking out an annoyed protest as popcorn started pelting him again. "Dump that athhat, KK."

Karkat promptly threw the TV remote at him, but Sollux just snickered as he caught it in midair.

"But theriouthly," Sollux said, "I do have a quethtion for you. Are you hearing thothe voitheth right now?"

He paused. Listened. "Yeah, it's kind of a constant buzz in the background now."

"Ith that tho?"

"Yep. Guess I'm just as much as a fucking freak as you are."

"No way, you're way more twithted than I am right now."

Karkat bared his teeth. He reached for something else to throw at Sollux, but there was nothing in sight but more popcorn. "How the fuck do you deal with it?"

"Deal with what?"

"The voices. Or, the _voitheth."_

Sollux sneered, and _he_ had the advantage of being able to fling anything in his borrowed hive at him from a distance. A series of paperback books went roaring from one of Rose's bookshelves, pelting Karkat in the head, the chest, the shoulders, each one buzzing with a haze of psionic energy. "Ouch!" he yelped.

"I _hope_ hurtth!" Sollux rumbled. "And to anthwer your quethtion, I just kind of…drown them out. Not sure that'll work with you, though. It theems like your shit is way too fucked up for that."

He had to agree that it would be hard to drown out the voices, seeing as there were plenty of hallucinations to go along with them. Even now he could see them, as he always could now, flitting in the corners of his vision. It was Feferi today, he noted. Better than Gamzee. "So what the fuck am I supposed to do, then? I don't suppose you have any magical cures for being driven out of your think pan by voices other than just fucking ignoring them?"

Sollux shrugged. "Thorry, KK, but I don't have anything like that. If I could help you I would, you know that." He bopped him upside the head with a book to prove his point.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled. "I'll tell you, it would be a fucking relief if I could get just one minute of sleep without these nightmares crawling all over me."

"Your recuperacoon isn't keeping them away?"

Karkat froze. "What the fuck do you mean my _recuperacoon?_ No one's managed to figure out how to alchemize a recuperacoon, that's part of my gogdamn problem!"

Sollux just stared at him for a long moment. Then he lurched to his feet, disengaging himself from the weird tangle he'd found himself in with Karkat. The next moment he felt Sollux's fingers hooking into the back of his neck and dragging him to his feet.

"Hey!" Karkat yelped. "Get the fuck off me, you miserable excuse for a troll!"

"KK, jutht come with me." Sollux dragged him, not giving him much of a choice in the matter as he ascended to the second floor. There was a door in front of them, and Sollux was shoving it open and chucking Karkat inside before he had a chance to so much as yelp in confusion.

"You fucking bulgemunch, how _dare_ you—!"

"Calm down, KK," he chuckled. "Jutht _look."_

He did. Then he looked again. And then he was on his feet and next to the thing, running his fingers across the smooth metallic surface to make sure it was really there—and it fucking _was._ Karkat wrenched the lid off the thing and stared inside. He dipped his fingers in the stuff he found there, gasping when he felt it stick to his fingers. It was real. _It was real._

Sollux had a recuperacoon.

"Fuck…" Karkat breathed. "Fuck, Sollux, how…?"

"I cracked the code after I left the meteor with AA," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It wath a real gogsend out there."

Karkat could do nothing but stare. It was time for him to yell, to shout, to tell him that he was a fucking _brilliant_ idiot, and he hated him _so much_ right now. But he just gaped at him, mouth hanging open, and tried to put into words just what he was feeling.

"What," Sollux said, "you guyth have been here for nearly a thweep and no one figured out the code?"

Karkat shook his head numbly.

"Gog, you guyth are all idiotth, aren't you?"

He couldn't respond for a long moment. Then, "D-do you think you could…?"

"Make more?" Sollux finished. "Well, yeah. I have the code for my thpecific recuperacoon, but I could play with it and produthe thomething more your thpeed. It'd take me about five minuteth."

"Please!" he blurted out. Then he recoiled, embarrassed he'd said it. "I mean…"

Sollux stared, no doubt shocked to hear such an open plea. "Um…yeah, okay, jutht give me a while. You're free to thtay here if you want."

Sollux brushed past him on his way to grab the code, but Karkat grabbed onto the back of his shirt the instant he was close enough. "You can actually do it?" he questioned, just to make sure. Rose and Kanaya had been trying for _so fucking long_ to figure out the code, it just seemed unbelievable that Sollux was going to swoop in like some kind of dark prince charming to soothe his nightmares.

"Geez, KK, I'm sure." Sollux pulled away and moved over to the recuperacoon, snapping up the code and moving to the desk off on the right wall. "You know, I thought it was thtrange that Rothe and Kanaya didn't have a thingle recuperacoon in thith plathe, but I jutht athumed that it was becauthe Kanaya wath a rainbow drinker and didn't need one. Never occurred to me that you guyth jutht didn't know how to make them." He opened his husktop and plugged the code into some program, already making the proper changes. "You guyth are hopeleth."

Karkat couldn't even muster a retort. He'd given up hope of ever sleeping well again, and now… _If I can just sleep in a recuperacoon, I'll stop having the nightmares. The sedative properties of the slime will keep me under too deep to have them. Gog, I want that so badly…_

Sollux tapped a few more keys, then looked up with a shrug. "There. I jutht thent the code to the alchemiter downthtairth."

Karkat was scrambling away before Sollux had the chance to finish his sentence. He found the alchemizing room in a heartbeat, and sure enough, there was a fucking _captchalogue card_ sitting on the flat platform in the center of the room. He scooped it up, holding it to the light and turning it back and forth to make sure it was real.

"Geez," Sollux said, appearing beside him in a cloud of psionics. "You really thprinted for that card."

"It's real?" he asked, even though he could _see_ it was real.

"Of courthe it'th real, what kind of a programmer do you take me for? Deploy it if you don't believe me."

He did. He moved to the side of the room and slid the card into his deck, deploying the recuperacoon despite his twisting stomach. And sure enough, there it was.

The answer to his problems—or at least, _part_ of the answer to his problems—was right in front of him.

"I have the code for the thlime, too," Sollux said, watching with vague curiosity as Karkat ran his hands up and down the metallic sides of the structure. "I'll give it to you on another card before you leave."

Karkat snapped the recuperacoon back up in his sylladex. He was surprised it fit, being as big as it was, but he wasn't complaining. He turned to Sollux, and with a tone that nearly made him sick to his stomach, he rasped, "Thank you. Seriously."

Sollux shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Yeah, no problem."

"You're still a piece of shit," Karkat said quickly. "But…thanks."

Sollux visibly relaxed as they fell back into familiar territory. "Yeah, thame to you. Now are you going to laze around in my temporary hive all day, or are you going to go make uthe of yourthelf doing thomething remotely fucking productive?"

He offered Sollux a glare. "Are you kicking me out?"

"Fuck yeah I am. Go deal with your problemth, you insufferable fuckath."

"Hey, that's my word! Don't steal my fucking word!"

He snickered. "Okay, get the fuck out—ith that better?"

Karkat sneered, but had to murmur out a quiet _thank you_ when Sollux chucked a second captchalogue card at him containing the code for sopor slime.

Then he was launched out the door by a wave of psionics, Sollux laughing so hard it sounded as if he were about to burst at the seams.

†††

"You guys!" Karkat called out the instant he got back into his hive. "John, Dave!"

There was a pause. Then Dave was calling, "Karkles, is something wrong?" as he appeared in the doorway to the meal block. John was hot on his heels, voicing a cheerful greeting.

"Nothing is wrong," he snapped. "In fact, something is fucking _right_ for a change." He popped the two captchalogue cards out of his deck and held them up. "Do you know what these are?"

John caught on first. His eyes widened with hope, and he whispered, "Karkat, is that…?"

"A recuperacoon," he confirmed. "And fucking _sopor slime_ to fill it."

Dave blinked. "Wait, seriously? Where on earth did you get it? Did Rose finally figure something out? Or Kanaya?"

"Sollux," he corrected, and he felt only a flicker of concern at the way Dave's features twisted at the sound of the name. _That jealousy is going to be a huge fucking issue._ "The guy's always been a computer genius, and it turns out he just _had_ the captchalogue code for it. He pulled up the code and altered it a bit, and here we fucking go!" He waved the cards again for emphasis.

Dave regarded them with cool curiosity. "So that's it, huh? The magical cure for your hallucinations?"

"Part of the cure," he corrected. _I still have to get the other part out of John._

"Well shit," Dave said, "go put that sucker down, then."

Karkat was moving for his room before either human had the chance to blink. He vaguely heard the two of them flying after him, but he didn't really care. He was on a mission, and he was going to fucking _fulfill it._

Then he was there. Then he was shoving the sleep slat up to one wall and clearing out a space large enough for his recuperacoon. Then he was deploying it, and the thing was _really there_. The slime followed, pouring into the chamber. It was the perfect amount; Sollux had known just how much to give him. Though now that he had the code, he could make another batch whenever he needed it.

"Eww," Dave commented, and Karkat realized he had an audience. "You sleep in that stuff?"

"I told you about this on the meteor," Karkat snapped. "You were _there!"_

"Yeah, uh…" Dave pushed his glasses up his nose in a way that didn't at all hide that he was uncomfortable. "I kinda blocked all those memories out. Thinking about being covered in that slimy stuff wasn't a pleasant memory."

"You didn't listen to a single fucking word I said, did you?"

"Woah, guys!" John soothed, hovering in between them. "Let's just be happy that _someone_ cracked the recuperacoon code."

Karkat eyed the recuperacoon. He was exhausted—he was _always_ exhausted now—and he _really_ wanted to sleep. He wondered if the humans would mind if he just passed out in a puddle of slime for a while.

"Well, go on!" John prompted, no doubt seeing the look on his face. "You're tired, so sleep!"

 _It's not nighttime,_ he almost started to say. But then he realized what a ridiculous complaint that was, and so he bit out, "Yeah, fine—get out so I can change!"

Dave shrugged. "Whatever makes you happy, dude." He turned for the door and was gone.

"I'll wait outside," John said. "Call me in once you're changed. You're not supposed to be left alone and all that, so I can't leave for long, though!"

"Right, right, just get the fuck out!"

John laughed goofily as he darted out of the room, closing the door behind him.

After that, Karkat fell back into the routine he'd kept for sweeps before having the comfort of his recuperacoon stripped away from him. First he fiddled with the controls on the side of the thing, making sure everything was in the right place. Recuperacoons had dials that would let you mess with the concentration of the slime inside, and Karkat twirled the dial all the way to the right to crank up the sedating effect as far as it would go. He wanted to sleep for _sweeps._ Satisfied with the settings, he reached for his clothing. It took about two seconds to strip down to his undershirt and his boxers. If he'd been on his own, he would have undressed entirely—but with the threat of revealing his last hidden mutation an ominous gleam on the horizon, and with the possibility of flashing John his troll junk an unpleasant buzz in the back of his think pan, he decided he'd forgo comfort for decency.

The next step was to actually get into the recuperacoon. He hoisted himself up onto the edge of the thing and tapped at the slime with his toes, making sure just one last time that it was actually there. Then, convinced that this was _real_ , he dove in.

He gasped as he found himself submerged in slime for the first time in what felt like sweeps. It was a pleasant balance between too hot and not hot enough, and he felt a raspy purr starting up low in his chest. Gog, he hadn't purred in so long…

John knocked on the door lightly. "Karkat, are you done?"

"Yeah," he called back. "You can come back in if you want."

John reentered the room just as Karkat sank in down to his eyes. "Oh, wow!" he exclaimed. "So this is how you guys normally sleep, huh?"

He hummed in affirmation. The sedating effects of the slime were already pulling him under, and he relished the feeling of security that came with it.

"Wow, you're already falling asleep!" John realized. "That stuff really works, doesn't it?"

He didn't answer. His head was fuzzy and his whole body was warm, and he was already drifting. He thought he heard John say something about switching off with Dave and going to see Rose in a few hours, but he couldn't be sure.

He was already gone, after all.

†††

That night, Karkat had the worst nightmare of his life.

 _"Aww, now you've up and done it, motherfucker!"_

 _A spike of horror thrilled through him at the sound of that voice. No, no, no—he'd gone to sleep in sopor slime, this wasn't supposed to be happening again!_

 _"I was all set to be your motherfucking kismesis, wasn't I? I was planning on being so motherfucking generous to you, motherfucker! You replaced me as a moirail, then you up and replaced me as a kismesis!"_

 _"You were never my kismesis!" he bit out, staggering away from the form of one Gamzee Makara as he stalked closer. He wasn't sure where they were, exactly—it was dark and hazy, some indistinguishable plane that only existed in dreams. "You wanted to take advantage of me and I wouldn't fucking let you!"_

 _"Aww, now don't be like that!" Gamzee was just getting closer and closer, and Karkat found himself backing away as fast as he could. Gamzee was faster. "We were having a real good time back there, weren't we? Snapping all your fingers and shit felt_ real _good_. _Didn't you think it was the most miraculous motherfucking thing in the world?"_

 _"No!" he hissed, still backing away even as Gamzee bore down upon him. He reached for his sickles, but they just weren't there, and before he knew what was happening one of Gamzee's large hands was closing over his throat and holding him in place. "Get the fuck off me!"_

 _Gamzee snarled. "You'd best be shutting the motherfuck up right about now, Karbro. Don't want to make me angry, do you?"_

 _He didn't particularly care, and he told Gamzee as much._

 _"Well let's see if I can_ make _you motherfucking care."_

 _Karkat tensed, ready for his bones to start snapping. But when a minute passed and nothing happened, he fixed Gamzee with a confused gaze. "What…?"_

 _Then he felt it. It was so sharp, so fast, that he didn't even have the time to scream—but it was definitely there, and he was definitely aware of every agonizing twitch of the tines buried deep in his back._

 _"Aww, you made him chirp!" Gamzee jostled him purposefully, and Karkat whined as he felt the metal in his back poke at the sensitive nerves bundled there. "Wanna take him for me?"_

 _There was no answer, but Karkat could only guess that the person had agreed when he felt Gamzee drop him straight onto his stomach._

 _"Have fun with my little miracle," Gamzee chuckled._

 _Who was that stabbing him? He tried to twist around to catch a glimpse of their face, but then a low growl rang out and_ dear fucking gog, _he couldn't move. His muscles went completely lax, and all the fight drained out of him without even a scrap of resistance. To his horror, he realized that he was producing a low, submissive keen, and his head was turned to bare his throat. Holy fuck, it was Feferi. Only she could reduce a lowblood like him to such a pathetic wreck with a single growl._

 _"F-Fef…" he tried, but then she growled again and it was all over. He couldn't move even if he tried. He was forced to lay in agonized silence as she stabbed her trident deeper into his back._

 _Things could not possibly get any worse, he thought. But then he felt the air sizzle with plasma, and he knew that things had just gotten about a thousand times worse._

 _Eridan was here._

 _He saw a pair of boots appear in his field of vision, and then Gamzee was drawling, "Well now it's just a motherfucking party! The whole gang's here, Karbro!"_

 _Oh, fuck. This was about to get really, really bad._

 _It did._

†††

Karkat awoke with a wail, thrashing desperately in the thick slime. His whole body was on _fire,_ burning all over and stinging where he'd been cut or burned or stabbed or blasted with plasma or fucking _run through with a lance_. The slime was supposed to _help_ with that, he remembered, it was supposed to heal his injuries and keep him sleeping peacefully, but right now it just felt like it was eating away at his flesh, and it was _agonizing._

 _Have to get out,_ he thought, struggling to move. But the slime was so thick, so _strong_ , that every movement felt like it took years, and soon he was spluttering for breath and sucking in a huge lungful of slime instead. _Oh, fuck!_

After that, everything went a bit…funny. He knew he was choking. He could feel himself coughing, could feel the slime dripping from his lips, could feel his body fighting to draw in air, but he couldn't _really_ feel it. He just felt vaguely fuzzy, entire body thrumming with pain, pan clouded with confusion, fingers scrabbling at the recuperacoon lid that he didn't even remember closing. _John,_ he thought. _John is out there. Come on, idiot, did you not hear me scream? Open the fucking lid!_

And thank fucking gog, it looked like _something_ was on his side today, because suddenly the lid was being lifted and a blurry face was staring down at him in alarm. _Help,_ he wanted to beg, but all he could do was choke pathetically on slime as cool fingers wrapped around his wrists and hauled him above the surface of the stuff.

"Karkat!" a familiar voice gasped. "Oh man, hang on! I'll get you out of there!"

He could only groan weakly, body limp and battered, as someone (he thought it was Dave, but his vision was too blurry and his ears were too clogged with sopor to tell) lifted him out of the slime and brought the two of them crashing to the ground. Karkat whined as the floor rubbed harshly across his bare skin and pressed at all of the areas that had been so brutally mutilated in his nightmare. Most of the slime had been coughed out of his lungs, but there was just enough left to render his entire form inert as he choked on long, rasping breaths.

"Fuck," Dave breathed. "You inhaled that shit, didn't you?"

He started coughing again, and the next moment a cool pair of hands settled on his chest, doing _something_ that helped him pump out the rest of the slime. He heard a disgusted gag as the green substance splattered onto the ground, tinged slightly red from where he'd bitten his tongue in his panic.

"That's it," Dave whispered. "You're okay, Karkles." He soothed his hands across his chest, his shoulders, his back. He was trying to comfort him. He knew that he was, and he knew that he shouldn't be afraid, but the horrible flickers of his nightmare were hanging on. He could still feel Gamzee's hands on his skin. He could still feel the bite of Feferi's trident, the sizzle of Eridan's gun, the sting of Nepeta's claws, the pressure of Tavros's lance, the crack of Equius's fists. He could still feel _everything,_ and it terrified him. It terrified him so much that he writhed away from Dave's touch with a cry, begging him silently not to touch him.

Dave didn't seem to realize what he was asking, though. "You're okay, Karkat," he repeated softly, trapping his flailing arms against his body. "It was just a dream, I promise…you're okay."

He rasped out a pained breath. The slime was already starting to crust in his hair and grow thick on his skin. _Fuck, this was a mistake. Sleeping was a mistake. I was foolish to think that the slime could actually help me._

"I'm going to get you to the shower," Dave told him gently. "You're covered in slime, and so am I, so we should wash up. Is that okay?"

He tried to nod, but his head just lolled limply on his shoulders. His muscles didn't belong to him.

Dave hummed. "Okay, I'll take that as a yes." He scooped him up and headed for the ablution trap, setting him gently inside. A moment later there was water pounding down on him, undergarments and all, soaking him to the bone in a heartbeat. It was warm. It was warm and it reminded him of the slime, which reminded him of his nightmare, which reminded him of _everything,_ and he felt tears dripping down his face before he had the chance to stop them.

 _"Don't tell me you're gonna cry, Kar."_

He flinched as if he'd been struck.

 _"Oh no, Karkitty, we didn't mean it! We didn't want to hurt you!"_

Dave's hands were on him again, rubbing away the drying slime.

 _"We, um, really didn't want to do that. It wasn't, um, our will."_

Dave was washing the slime out of his hair. It felt good, but he couldn't focus on it.

 _"Oh, Karkrab, we're so sorry! We're not evil, but this place…when we were thrown through that portal it started to scramble our pans, and it's just getting worse and worse as time goes on! I'm afraid that soon we won't be able to think clearly at all, ever! I'm so sorry!"_

Dave was chipping the dried slime off his horns, and he couldn't hold back a soft sigh at the feel of it, subduing endorphins coursing through his veins in small degrees.

 _"I do say, that_ was _rather unpleasant. I apologize for my foolishness. My mind was not my own."_

The slime was all gone now, he thought. All gone except for a few traces clinging to his legs, and Dave was quickly taking care of those. He wasn't even _trying_ to take Karkat's remaining clothing off, and for that he was thankful. If Dave went for his shirt, he didn't think he'd have the energy to stop him from lifting it up and uncovering his gills.

 _"Things are about to get a lot worse, Karkat. I'm so sorry…we can't stop it! We've krilled already, and we'll krill again—and I'm shore you're going to be caught up right in the middle of it!"_

"Are you feeling better?" Dave murmured, but Karkat couldn't hear him.

 _"Yeah, that sounds about right, Kar. I mean, we've hung on this long, but I'm pretty shore our control is about to go out. So…when we start swingin' at all of you, know it's not reel-y what we want to do."_

His eyes widened in alarm. Dave was still talking in the background.

 _"Um…yeah, that sounds about, right…but I think you can beat us if you, um, work together!"_

He was going insane. No, he _was_ insane.

 _"You won't be alone. The fools living on your world are already beginning to see us, even if they don't understand that it's really us that they're seeing."_

"Karkat," Dave whispered. "Karkat, please…you're scaring me, here."

 _"Oh, yes! That's right! They can help you, Karkitty! All you have to do is beat us, and then we'll be fine! Just like Sollux! Or at least…I_ think _that's how it works? We're not really sure…"_

"Karkat, _please…_ come back to me!"

 _"Coddamn it, we're fadin' again. Kar, you'd better beat the hell out of us when the time comes, you mutant piece of shit!"_

"Karkat!"

 _"Eridan, don't be glubbin' mean!"_

"Kar—!"

 _"Not my fault he's fuckin' landdweller scum!"_

 _"Oh cod, you're such a bigot!"_

 _"Aww, you two, can't we just be friends and help Karkitty out?"_

 _"I agree. The two of you are being foolish."_

 _"So says the guy obsessed with all the weird fuckin' horses!"_

 _"They're musclebeasts!"_

 _"Same fuckin' thing, weirdo!"_

 _"Actually, the differences can be quite obvious if you'd just—"_

Karkat whined, curling in on himself and clasping his hands to his head. _I can't take this anymore! Please, just let me pass out, or die, or_ something!

 _"Cod! Eridan, Equius, just be quiet! Go blackflirt somewhere else!"_

 _"What? We're_ not fuckin' _blackflirtin', Fef! What kind of a seadweller would I be if I associated with this sweaty excuse for a troll?"_

 _"I beg your pardon! I happen to be one of the highest bloods of the land-dwelling spectrum!"_

 _"Still a fuckin' landdweller!"_

 _"Watch your mouth!"_

 _"Make me, gutter swill!"_

 _"Come over here and I'll—!"_

And then the voices were gone. Just like that, they snapped out of existence and left him alone. _Wait, what…?_

"…ve you, Karkat."

He blinked. What? What was happening? What had brought him back?

Dave's arms tightened around him. "I do. I really do, and I couldn't stand losing you like this, so _come back!"_

And he did. Something Dave had said had kicked the voices out, had given his think pan back to him, and he _hadn't even heard it._ Shaky and weak, he scraped his claws across the back of Dave's neck.

The human sucked in an immediate gasp. "Karkat!" He drew back, and the troll realized that (a), they were still in the shower, and (b), Dave was hugging the shit out of him in the shower, soaked to the bone and still fully dressed.

"Oh thank god," Dave laughed, though it was a little shakier than it should have been. He raised a hand and tapped at Karkat's cheek, whispering, "Karkles, you were so far gone…"

Was that true? He supposed that it probably was, that he probably had been, dazed and spacing out and listening to voices that weren't there. "Sorry," he managed, and his voice was a weak rasp that sounded about as painful as it felt.

"Don't be _sorry,"_ Dave said. "I'm just glad you managed to get back."

Karkat blinked once, twice. Then he tried to push himself up, and Dave quickly scrambled off of him to turn off the water and help him lean against the back of the ablution trap. His clothes were soaked and clinging to him and he didn't care.

"Easy," Dave whispered. "Just take things slow, okay? You've been staring at nothing for about fifteen minutes now." He reached for a towel, then moved it to Karkat's head and started drying his hair. "Karkat…what happened?"

His stomach twisted unhappily. "Nightmare," he explained in a low rasp.

"A nightmare did this to you?" the human questioned, toweling around his horns before moving down to dab at his face. "Must have been one hell of a nightmare, dude."

He stared at Dave, uncomprehending. And then, much to his horror, he just burst into tears.

"Oh—oh no— _shit_ , what am I supposed to—?"

 _I need my moirail,_ he thought, but he could never say that to Dave, not when he hadn't yet been shown just _how much fucking sense_ quadrants made. And so he settled for pressing his face into his knees to hide his tears, feeling miserably amused at the way Dave was stuttering and looking every which way for something to help him.

"Okay, okay, _okay—_ I can handle this," Dave was chanting under his breath. Karkat felt the human scoop him up out of the tub and sit him on the counter. The towel returned to his skin to wipe away the moisture. "Hang on," Dave said. He vanished, and when he returned he was holding a pair of his own boxers and a clean t-shirt, no doubt having retrieved them from his room across the hall. "Yours are soaked, dude, and I'm not rooting around in your unmentionables to find another set. Just wear my clothes for the time being."

"Gross," Karkat murmured, but he wasn't _really_ complaining. Mostly dry, he heaved himself off the counter and forced Dave to turn around before changing into the new clothing. After that he grabbed the towel, finding that a little of his strength was starting to return, and dabbed away the rest of the water around his stomach and thighs.

"Come on," Dave murmured, helping him out of the ablution block and supporting him as he tried to stagger back into his wrecked respiteblock. The blond took one moment to look at the slime sprayed everywhere and the scattered items across the floor, then decided, "We're sleeping in the master bedroom."

He didn't have the strength to disagree, though he knew that he wouldn't be sleeping much. He'd decided to never sleep again.

"Careful," Dave cautioned as the troll nearly fell over. He secured one arm around his waist and guided him slowly for the master bedroom. "Here we are…easy, now." He lowered Karkat down onto the bed as if he were made of glass. The covers were soft, but still they rasped painfully across the ghosts of his wounds. "You're okay, Karkles."

Dave pulled the covers up over him. Then he circled to the other side of the bed and got in with him, pulling him close and refusing to let go. Karkat didn't think he minded.

"I really thought you'd lost it," Dave whispered. The human was dragging his fingertips across his stomach, seeming to marvel at the thickness of what skin he could feel peeking out from beneath the hem of his shirt. "Thought you'd flipped your shit for good."

Karkat just hummed tiredly. The sedating effects of the slime were still wearing off, and despite the fact that he was too haunted to really sleep, he was exhausted.

"You doing okay?" Dave pressed. "You're not freaking out over what I said to you back there, are you?"

He paused, wondering what he meant. But then he remembered that Dave had brought him back to himself by saying _something,_ though he hadn't heard it so he didn't know what it had been.

Dave watched his face with rapt attention. "I meant it, you know. I really did."

Okay, so whatever he'd said had probably been really important. He should ask him about it.

Dave sighed. "Okay, bad timing. We don't have to talk about it right now. Just get some rest, and we can have a conversation about it in the morning."

…Or he could ask later. He was okay with that.

"Okay, Karkles. See you in the morning."

Then he was out, and Karkat was left staring blankly up at the ceiling.

†††

Karkat heard the instant John came home from his talk with Rose. The door opened quietly—it was late at night, after all—and then closed behind him with a click, the floor giving off faint taps as John walked along it.

 _Finally,_ he thought, shooting Dave a cautious glance. The human was completely out, drained from having to take care of a very traumatized, very crazed troll. The good news was that he'd rolled over sometime in the night, so he was no longer wrapped around Karkat like a blanket. He enjoyed the heat, enjoyed the comfort, pitied Dave to death, but he needed to go to his moirail right now.

It took only a few moments to slip out of bed without Dave noticing. He was shaky, wearing nothing but a pair of the human's boxers and a thin t-shirt, and he didn't care. John was down there, John was home, and he _needed_ him. He half-staggered down the stairs, and there he was.

"Karkat?" John whispered, eyes going wide when he saw him. "What are you doing down here? Where are your _clothes?"_

"John…" he keened.

His eyes widened even further. All else was forgotten. "Oh no. Pile?"

Karkat nodded.

John took a few steps into the living room. He snatched up a spare shirt of Karkat's and a pair of pants that had somehow found their way into the pile. Then he drew Karkat close and helped him dress into his usual attire before pulling both of them down to lie on the mound of blankets. Karkat didn't have the strength to keep himself sitting upright like he normally did. He lay down on his side just like John, limbs draped limply around him.

"Okay," John whispered, brushing a thumb across his cheek. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

He did. He told him everything in horrific detail, ignoring the whispers that were starting to build in the back of his mind, and forced himself to relieve every moment of that nightmare. He could feel the wounds all over again, and it was nauseating.

"Oh god, Karkat," John breathed when he was done. "That's horrible! I thought that the recuperacoon was supposed to solve all your sleeping problems!"

"Well it looks like it did fuck all for me," the troll growled. His voice was still raspy and low. "Made things a thousand times worse. Every time I wanted to wake up, the sedative in the slime dragged me back under."

John winced. Sometime during Karkat's spiel the two of them had ended up tangled together, hands clasped, legs hooked together at the ankles and pressing close at the knees. "That's horrible, Karkat…I'm so sorry you had to go through that."

"Yeah, so am I." He ran his thumb across the top of John's hand thoughtlessly. "I've decided I'm not sleeping again."

"But Karkat, you can't! Your body can only go so long without sleep before it just shuts down and stops working!"

"I don't care."

John's expression hardened immediately, and he chastised, "And where would that leave Dave and me? Or everyone else that cares about you? If you just gave up and let yourself go, you'd be no better than Dave was when he ditched you all those months ago!"

That made him pause.

"You can't give up so easily. These nightmares are horrific, but surely there has to be something we can do to help you!"

He knew what he could do. He could tell John everything.

"You were going to talk to me about something tonight," John pressed. "Something other than the nightmares. Would that help?"

He nodded.

"Then tell me, and I'll listen."

He swallowed hard. "Yeah, I…yeah. Okay." But then he just lay there, staring at John like an antlerbeast caught in the headlights, not quite sure what to say.

John sighed. "Okay, I guess I'll bite. Is it about Sollux?"

"What? Why the fuck would it be about that piece of shit?"

The corners of the human's mouth quirked upwards. "You seem to really hate him."

"Of course I do, he's fucking ridiculous! Have you _heard_ that lisp of his?" Then he paused. "Wait, no—this isn't what we're supposed to be talking about."

"Then what should we be talking about?"

"My fucking guilt! That's the whole thing Rose has been trying to get me to talk about since the beginning, but I've always been too much of a coward, or something's happened to stop me from saying anything!" Then he gasped. He'd been so irritated thinking about Sollux that he'd just _blurted it all out,_ like it was _nothing_.

John's tiny smile turned into a full-blown smirk. "I knew that would work! But…guilt? Karkat, what could you possibly have to be guilty over?"

 _"Everything!"_ he burst out. His eyes felt hot, but he wasn't going to let himself cry twice in one day. "John, it's _all_ my fault! I was a terrible leader, I messed everything up and treated everyone like shit and they all died because of it!"

"Who are _they?"_ John pressed gently.

"The trolls! Five of the six dead trolls—or at least, the trolls we're _certain_ are dead—were killed by my fucking mistakes!"

His expression twisted. "Oh," he whispered. "How so?"

The floodgates had been opened. He couldn't stop himself. "I told you, I was a horrible fucking leader, and a worse moirail for literally _everyone_ who needed me! Did you know that there were two other trolls that played at being my moirail, John? The first one was Eridan, a weird fish troll with a horrible temper, and I just blew him right the fuck off when he needed me! And do you know what he did, John? He fucking _slaughtered_ Feferi and nearly killed Sollux and Kanaya! Feferi died, Sollux lost his _matesprit_ , and Kanaya turned into a rainbow drinker because I refused to help Eridan!"

John watched him, expression unreadable. Then, "But that wasn't really your fault, Karkat. You can see that, can't you?"

 _"What?_ Of course it's my fucking fault, how is it not?"

"Well, you weren't the only troll on the meteor."

"Yeah, and?"

"And if Eridan needed help that badly, it wasn't _your specific responsibility_ to help him. You were trying to lead, Karkat, you more important things to worry about!"

"More important than my friend's emotional state?"

"Yes. More important than that. Tell me, Karkat, did Eridan ever have a moirail before he tried to do that whole thing with you?"

He thought of Feferi. "Yes, but they broke up."

"Then isn't it more his former moirail's fault than yours?"

He blanched, not entirely sure. "Well…she broke thing off, so technically she didn't really have to…"

"Don't get me wrong," John said quickly, "the way I see it, it's Eridan's fault entirely. But if you're determined to blame someone outside of the person who did the actual killing, then it seems like his former moirail should have picked up the warning signs and either told someone or neutralized the threat themselves."

He…had a point. Gog fucking damn it, John had a point. "Okay, but that doesn't excuse Gamzee!"

"The clown troll, right? What happened with him?"

"He went on a trollhunt," Karkat bit out, eyes prickling at the thought of it. "Went charging around the lab trying to kill all of us. He got Equius and Nepeta."

"And how is this your fault?"

"Same thing as Eridan," he managed. "Gamzee was volatile, he _needed_ a moirail—and I didn't realize it until he'd already started hunting us down. If I'd realized it sooner, I could have saved him _and_ them!"

John cocked his head. "You seem to think that you have to look after everyone that's even remotely unstable. As if you have to jump into pale romance with _everyone_ , regardless of how you personally feel."

His retort died in his throat.

"Karkat, do you feel the same way about me that you felt about Eridan and Gamzee?"

"Fuck no! Not even close!"

The human offered him the sweetest smile possible. "Then you didn't really want to be their moirail, did you? Even if you'd tried, I doubt you would have been able to do anything for them."

"But I _was_ Gamzee's moirail! I _did_ manage to calm him down for a while!"

"And eventually that came to an end," John rationalized. "If you're not cut out to be someone's moirail, it seems to me that you just make things worse by trying. Who are you to say that things wouldn't have gone worse if you _had_ tried? You might have been killed, or worse!"

"I…"

"It's not your fault," John said firmly. "It's really not, Karkat, no matter what you may think." Then his eyes went wide with realization. "Wait…Rose thinks that's the cause of your hallucinations, doesn't she? She thinks that your guilt is causing your mind to punish you for what you think is your fault!"

He winced. The purrbeast was out of the bag now. "Yeah. That's exactly what she thinks."

"Well then why didn't you talk to me sooner? Karkat, if there's been a way of helping you this whole time that you haven't told me about, I don't know what I'll do!"

"Please don't be upset," he rasped, hanging his head. "I just…I _couldn't_ face what I'd done."

"You didn't _do_ anything, that's the point! You're punishing yourself for no reason, and you're dragging Dave and me along for the ride!"

He recoiled the best he could in his current situation. _Fuck, John's mad at me now and he's going to want to break up and then I don't know how I'll handle the nightmares and then—_

"Karkat," John whispered, "look at me."

He did. He did, and John was wearing an expression of gentle chastisement, not anger. It made his stomach churn.

"Karkat," John repeated. "Kar…I'm not really mad at you. I'm not going to hurt you over this, and I'm not going to try to punish you any more than you're already punishing yourself. I just wish that you would have said something to me sooner, because that's what I'm here for! You want me to be your moirail, right? Then you're supposed to _tell_ me these things."

He was so kind… Karkat didn't deserve him. He knew he didn't.

"How am I supposed to help you if you don't trust that I won't hurt you?"

"I'm sorry," he forced out. "I swear, I never meant to hurt anyone!"

One of John's arms hooked around his shoulders, drawing him close. "It's not your fault," he whispered. "It's all going to be okay now, Karkat…I can help you through this, and Dave will always be around for you to talk to."

His blood pusher felt like it was about to burst right the fuck out of his chest. It was actually starting to sink in now, that maybe it _hadn't_ been his fault, maybe he _wasn't_ wholly responsible for the deaths of his friends. For the first time in the sweeps that had passed since that first death, the terrible guilt in his chest started to ease.

And John. John was right there, leaning close and watching him with those bright, concerned eyes of his. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, I…I think I do." And he really did. He understood, and it was as if a crushing weight had been lifted off his chest and chucked right into the ocean. His eyes were burning again, and maybe he _was_ about to cry twice in one day. "John, I…"

But he didn't get further than that. Because John had just leaned in, and _he_ had just leaned in, and suddenly they were pressed together in the palest kiss Karkat had ever experienced.


	15. Dave: Misunderstand

**Just to warn you, I'm moving into my college dorm next Saturday so the chapter will most likely be posted on Friday.**

 **Chapter 15:** **Dave: Misunderstand**

* * *

 _It's heaven._

That was the first thing Karkat thought upon drawing away, staring up at John with an expression that teetered between awe and confusion. He'd never had a proper moirail before, had never experienced anything like this—and so when he felt the way the tension just drained out of him upon the first flicker of contact, he felt as if his whole world had just opened up before him.

John looked equally stunned. "Wow, I'm…" And Karkat swore if the next words out of his mouth were _not a homosexual,_ he was going to bash his brains right the fuck in, because _holy fuck_ that was not the point of this. But then John smiled goofily, and all of Karkat's worries washed away. "Just, _wow._ I did not expect that to happen."

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Well it _did_ happen, dumbass—and I, for one, am feeling infinitely better about this whole mess of a situation." And he really was, too. His spirits were higher than they'd been in months, and all of his guilt was just starting to fade away as John stared at him with those ridiculously blue eyes.

"Yeah, uh…wow, me too."

"If you say _wow_ one more time, I'm going to launch you out the fucking window."

He giggled. "Oops! Sorry, I'm just…surprised? I didn't think I'd ever…you know…"

Another roll of the eyes. "Are you going to sit there, or are you going to do it again?"

John answered by leaning forward and kissing him again, just a light press of lips that was standard for moirails and that made Karkat immediately forget that he'd ever been worried about anything in his entire life. He raised a hand up to cup John's cheek as the human kissed his nose, his forehead, his cheeks, everything feeling warm and fuzzy and amazing in ways he'd never felt before.

That is, until a sharp, horrified voice cut right through their happy moment.

"Dude. What the _fuck?"_

The two shot apart faster than the speed of light, and Karkat's stomach immediately recreated all of the knots that John had just managed to smooth out. Dave must have heard something strange, must have come down to see what was going on, must have been prompted by _something_ that wanted to ruin Karkat's life, because _here he was._

John was the first one to react. "Dave, this isn't—"

"What it looks like?" he finished with a vicious snarl. "Because it _looks_ like you're sitting there kissing _my_ boyfriend!"

 _He thinks of me as his boyfriend?_ It shouldn't have surprised him, but he still felt a flicker of pleased realization nibbling at his extremities.

"Dave, I swear, if you'd just let us explain—"

"Oh no, no explanation necessary!" Dave turned his burning gaze on Karkat, and all happiness melted out of the troll in a single heartbeat. "What the fuck is _wrong_ with you? I told you how I felt about you, and then you just ran off and started macking on my best friend? Are you fucking _kidding_ me right now?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. How was he supposed to explain this to someone so ardently against the quadrant system? And what did he mean he'd told him how he felt about him? Was this about that sentence he hadn't heard, the one that had brought him back while he was passed out in the shower? Had it really been _that_ monumental?

"Hey, come on!" John tried again. "Dave, please just sit down and let us tell you what's going on!"

"Oh no, there's no way I'm hanging around to be dumped flat on my ass!" he spat. "I was an idiot to ever come back here, it's obvious that you've just been leading me on like an idiot this whole fucking time!" He was practically steaming. "But you know what? I'm done! Fucking _done!_ I've suspected this whole goddamn time that something was going on between you two, and now you go and prove me wrong in the worst way possible—so I'm _out."_ He stormed towards the door, and Karkat felt his entire world start to break apart.

"W-wait!" he choked out, lurching to his feet and half-staggering towards the departing human. "Dave, please—!" He managed to get a hand around his arm, but was thrown to the ground in a flash.

"Don't _touch_ me!" he snarled. His hand was on the doorknob. The door was open. "You two can do whatever the fuck you want now, because I'm not getting in your way for another second after this! John, good luck taking care of his delusional ass!"

Then just like that he was gone, tearing out into the night sky and disappearing towards the center of town.

And also just like that, John was invisible. He was still there, probably staring in horror, but Karkat just couldn't see him anymore. All he could see was where Dave had flown off, furious beyond reconciliation, and it _hurt._ It hurt and it was his fault and he had to make it right.

He thought he heard John yelling something after him as he tore out of the front door and bolted for town. He knew where Dave would be going, and he had to get there first. _Gog, don't let me lose him because of this! He's an idiot, but—but I pity him! Fuck, I pity him so hard it hurts and I can't just let him waltz away and leave the door open on the way out!_

He was far slower than Dave, but he sprinted as fast as he could down the path that would lead him straight to the town square, then through to the hive Dave had built beside John's. _I have to reach him before he gets there and locks me out!_

He caught a flicker of red out of the corner of one eye—Dave was overhead in the distance, traveling far slower than his top speed. Maybe he was too shaken to move as swiftly as normal? He didn't know and he didn't care.

"Dave!" he cried out, voice bouncing off the surrounding trees in a disorientating scramble. The trees were growing thinner now that they were near town. _"Dave!"_

The human ignored him, but flew no faster. They were in the beginnings of town now and Karkat had to scramble to keep up amidst the shops and tables set outside of them. It was so late that no one was around but them and a few stray villagers, so he didn't mind making as much noise as he did as he ran.

"Dave, get the fuck down here and talk to me!"

Still, there was no response.

But then Dave flew low to dip beneath an archway, and Karkat saw his chance. _I could cut his foot off if I miss,_ he realized—but losing all of Dave was more damning than losing a foot, and he was _fairly_ certain he could make that throw, and so he snatched a sickle out of his sylladex and chucked it as hard as he could at the human's retreating form.

Dave yelped indignantly as the sickle stuck point-first in the wood that made up the archway, the handle coming to rest flush with the archway a moment later, forming an closed crescent. "Dude!"

 _Perfect._ Dave's ankle was pinned perfectly by the arch between the point and the handle. It wouldn't hold him once he reached down and tore it off, but it had provided the perfect distraction.

"Finally!" Karkat snapped, panting as he drew to a halt. "I just want to talk to you, so float there for just one fucking moment while I explain!"

Dave sneered. "This had better be good, _Karkles."_ He made no move to remove the sickle.

"Right—fine!" Karkat sucked in a deep breath. "What you saw is completely normal for trolls, fuckass! It wasn't any form of flushed infidelity, it's just how we do things!"

"Right, you just go around kissing whoever the fuck you want? Yeah right!"

"John is my _moirail,_ you blithering imbecile!" he roared.

Dave froze. "What?"

"You heard me! He's my fucking moirail, and it's _normal_ for moirails to exchange light, completely _platonic_ gestures of affection like that!"

For a moment, Dave almost looked relieved. But then his guard flickered back up, and he spat, "I told you, man, I'm not doing the whole quadrant thing! It's freaky dating someone who goes around kissing other dudes!"

 _Oh, that's it._ "If you actually cared for me, you wouldn't give a fuck! You would _know_ that I pitied you and _only_ you as a red concupiscent partner, and that would be enough!"

He paused. "You pity…?"

"That's right, fuckass! I pity the ever-loving shit out of you!"

"Well that's just great, because I _love_ the ever-loving shit out of you!"

 _Wait, what?_ "You love me?"

"I _told_ you I loved you! When we were in the shower I looked you dead in the eyes and said it, and…" He trailed off, seeing the expression of horrified confusion on Karkat's face. "Oh fuck, you didn't hear me, did you?"

He shook his head. "T-that's what you said to me? I was going to ask, but…"

Dave just stared. "You didn't hear me. The one time I decided to actually blurt out how I was feeling and be serious about my emotions, you _didn't fucking hear me."_

"I'm fucking sorry, okay? I just didn't know!"

"Well it doesn't matter anymore, does it?" And now Dave was reaching for his ankle, wrenching the sickle away and letting it fall to the ground with a dull clatter. "If you're going to have a moirail and a kismesis and whatever else, I'm out. I don't swing that way."

He felt as if his heart were being ripped out of his chest. "Dave, please!"

"It's been fun and all, Karkles, and I hope you get over what kind of crazy shit is happening in your head. If you ever decide to give the human way of doing things a try, let me know. But if not, then I guess I'll just see you around."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you fucking telling me that you lived with me, looked after me, _told me_ that you loved me, and did _all this shit to keep me safe,_ only to turn around and dump me just because I have other quadrants? Are you _really_ that fucking selfish?"

"It's not being selfish," he growled. "This is just how I do things!"

"Well how you _do things_ is by being a selfish fuckass! You said you loved me, but I don't think I believe you if you're willing to run off after something like me trying to have a moirail!"

"It's just not—"

"Do you know who held me together when you were running around being an idiot?" Karkat hissed. "It was _John._ It was my _moirail._ Without a moirail, without him, I probably would have gone off the rails a long fucking time ago! I _need_ my other quadrants, Dave! It doesn't mean I pity you any less! It's not like there's one giant pool of pity boiling inside my tiny, withered heart, and that I'm giving a smaller amount to you than to John, or _splitting_ it in any way! We're _built_ to take multiple quadrants, _built_ to love more than one person! It's just how we are!"

For one fleeting moment, Dave looked uncertain. But then he whipped up into the air, biting out, "Whatever you say, dude—but I'm out."

"Dave!" he cried desperately, lurching forward—but the human was already flying away, something wet and cool glistening on his cheeks.

Something broke inside him. Karkat could feel it splinter, crack right down the middle and split off into two tattered halves. He felt it go, felt it begin to ache deep and terrible in his chest, and just like that something _else_ inside him broke, something that had been holding the full force of the voices at bay.

Suddenly, it was too much for him to bear.

"Aww, well that was just _so_ motherfucking sad! I'm about to cry over here, Karbro, watching your matesprit up and abandon you like that!"

He didn't have the strength to remind himself that it was just a hallucination. It was real to him, _Gamzee_ was real, and he couldn't take it any longer.

"That's what you motherfucking get, letting all of us down like that."

A low growl was building in the back of his throat. It wasn't going to affect Gamzee, not with his indigo blood being so much higher than his own candy red, but at the very least it managed to help him steady himself. _I'm going to kill you,_ he realized, and just like that his body stopped shaking. _I'm going to take my sickles and slice through your stomach, and I'm going to kill you._

"Now that's just a motherfucking miracle, right there!" Gamzee laughed. "All up and growling at me like you think it'll make a difference! What are you going to do, Karbro?"

 _I'm going to kill you._

"You gonna run one of those pretty sickles through my gut?"

 _I'll fucking kill you. Right now._

"Will that make it hurt less, motherfucker? Will it make you feel all better and shit? Better that your matesprit just ditched you for good?"

 _Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up_

"Not sure you can stomach it, Karbro. Not sure you can motherfucking _handle_ trying to kill me!"

His sickles were back in his hands. His growling had become deafening now, buzzing through his skull and reverberating into the night air.

"We're going to kill all your friends, you know that? We're almost motherfucking here for _good_ , and then we're going to tear right through them like they're made of nothing. Think you're all up and ready to see that?"

He stood. His knuckles were white with the force of the grip he had on his sickles, and his eyes flashed a menacing scarlet. His entire body coiled with tension.

"Oh, but you're never going to have the chance to motherfucking see it, my little miracle!"

 _Make him pay make him pay make him pay make him pay_

"Want to know why?"

 _MAKE HIM PAY!_

Karkat launched himself forward with a roar, the voice consuming every inch of his body as he brought up his sickles purely on instinct and _slashed,_ tearing them across right where Gamzee's stomach would have been. He knew it was useless. He knew that he was going to hit nothing, hurt no one, and that Gamzee would probably just vanish into nothing.

And so when he was suddenly covered in scarlet, he couldn't help a horrified screech.

He thought he heard Gamzee laugh as _something_ thudded to the ground in front of him, sickles protruding from its chest. It wasn't Gamzee. It _wasn't fucking Gamzee._

Someone yelled, terrified and high. Footsteps were pounding towards him.

 _"Want to know why you're not going to see it?"_

He looked around wildly, but Gamzee had vanished save for a pair of indigo eyes in the shadows.

 _"Because you're going to be nice and locked up for a long, long time, motherfucker."_

He yelped as something crashed into his back, and suddenly there was a knee digging into his spine and a hand on the back of his neck and hot breath at his ear, and someone was still yelling.

"Karkat! Karkat, how _could_ you? What were you _thinking?"_

 _What?_ He blinked blearily. Blood was on his hands, he realized. Red blood. Candy red blood, but not his.

The person holding him down—Jade, he thought, Jade was there with a few others—hauled him up. "Roxy, create something to hold him!"

Something closed down on his wrists, but he didn't care. He didn't care because from this angle he could see the body in front of him, could _see_ what he'd done, and he was suddenly overcome with the desire to throw up.

A prospitarian. A tall, beautiful prospitarian splayed out across the ground, two sickles buried deep into her stomach. _I did that. I killed her. I killed her because I thought she was Gamzee. He made me think that prospitarian was him, and he taunted me into killing him._

"Let's get him to Rose," he heard Jade say. "She'll know what to do."

She wouldn't. Who would know what to do with someone like him?

†††

Rose knew exactly what to do.

"Bring him," she ordered when she saw Jade and Roxy standing in the doorway, a blood-spattered Karkat held between them. "I have a room ready."

"Did you suspect this would happen?" Jade demanded as she followed, Roxy in tow.

"Not exactly," was the sharp response. Rose wrenched open one of the miscellaneous doors in the lab and entered into a space that turned out to be a holding cell. "Jade, put him here." She pointed to the cot in the right-hand corner of the room. Jade didn't hesitate.

"Why do you have this room?" Roxy asked curiously. She poked at one wall approvingly. "Steel plated. Nice."

Rose shot her a glance. "I feared that Karkat would eventually reach the point of hurting himself without John being able to help him, or perhaps that Dirk would decide to _really_ harm someone. I had this cell set up just in case that happened. Now, do you want to tell me exactly what happened?"

Jade shuddered. "Karkat killed a prospitarian."

 _What?_ Rose paused, looking down at Karkat where he'd been laid on the bed. He was still awake, but his eyes bored uselessly into the ceiling. "He killed someone?"

"Yeah," Roxy snorted. "It was pretty brutal, too—sliced right through the poor girl's stomach."

"And you saw this happen?"

"Unfortunately yes," Jade confirmed. "It was so strange, Rose! He was having some kind of weird yelling match with Dave, which is what caught our attention, and then Dave flew off and he just kind of _stared_ for a while. Then a prospitarian came up to him to try to help, and he just _slaughtered_ her. It was so horrible…I'll never unsee it!"

Rose plucked a rag out of her sylladex and began to clean the blood from Karkat's shaking hands. "Oh dear…another hallucination, I suspect. He probably thought the prospitarian was someone else."

"It doesn't matter what he _thought,"_ Jade cried, "it matters what he _did!_ And he _killed_ a prospitarian! He's a danger to all of us, Rose, you know he is!"

"This is quite bad," she agreed quietly.

"If he killed one, he could have killed others," Roxy agreed. "Hate to say it, but we really need to do something about this."

"Yes," Rose had to agree. "I will take every measure necessary to make sure there is no repeat incident."

Jade shot a nervous glance at Karkat. "What do you think you're going to do?"

"Apparently Sollux has managed to alchemize sopor slime," Rose murmured. "Kanaya tells me that it can be used as a sedative, though it can be dangerous in large doses. For the time being, I plan to use it to keep Karkat as calm as possible. Hopefully we can start to work him down from this and make sure that nothing else happens."

Roxy nodded. "Sounds good to me. A drugged Karkat is a good Karkat in this case."

"John won't be happy," Jade pointed out, "but I don't think we have much of a choice."

Rose nodded. "Thank you for bringing this to me, Jade, Roxy. Would you be willing to do me a favor now?"

"Yeah," Jade said, "what is it?"

"Jade, I'd like you to go see if you can talk to Dave. Tell him what happened and try to get him here. Talk some sense into him, or _beat_ it into him if you have to."

She cracked her knuckles, eyes glowing menacingly. "Will do, Rose."

"Roxy," she continued, "I want you to go find John. You shouldn't have any problems getting him here; he'll probably out-fly you once he hears what's happened. Can you do that?" She should also ask Kanaya to message Sollux, she realized—it seemed like he'd probably want to know about this, seeing as he was so close to Karkat.

Roxy clicked her fingers. "Yeah, no problem. Those two will be here in a flash."

†††

\- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA] -

GA: Sollux Are You There

GA: Something Has Happened That We Must Discuss

TA: hey kn, what'2 up?

TA: 2omethiing wrong?

GA: You Could Say That

GA: Theres Really No Easy Way Of Saying This To You So Ill Just Be Blunt

TA: go on then.

GA: Karkat Killed One Of The Prospitarians

TA: whaaaaaat are you 2ayiing?

TA: that wa2 2ome kiind of joke, riight? becau2e ii know ii diidn't ju2t read that kk kiilled 2omeone.

TA: that guy'2 a complete 2oftiie, he'd never do anythiing liike that.

TA: you mu2t be wrong.

GA: Two Of The Humans Saw Him Do It

GA: Theres Really No Doubt That It Was Him

TA: well 2hiit

TA: what happened exactly?

GA: Apparently He Just Lashed Out And Killed Her

GA: No Explanation No Words Exchanged

GA: He Just Did It

GA: Rose Suspects That It Was Caused By The Hallucinations Hes Been Having

GA: She Thinks That He Saw The Prospitarian As Someone Else And Attacked Because Of That

TA: fuck

TA: he'2 really that me22ed up?

TA: ii mean, he 2aiid a2 much two me when he wa2 over, but ii diidn't really realiize how bad iit wa2, ii gue22.

GA: I Dont Think Even He Realized He Was This Bad

GA: You Shouldnt Feel Bad

TA: not really helpiing, kn, but thank2

GA: Youre Welcome I Suppose

GA: Now Will You Come To The Lab

GA: I Believe Karkat May Benefit From Your Presence

TA: uh, not that ii'm refu2iing or anythiing, but don't you thiink that haviing me around hiim miight not be a good iidea?

GA: Why Would You Say That

GA: You Two Are Close Are You Not

TA: yeah but

TA: ii don't thiink that haviing your kii2me2ii2 around whiile you're weak breed2 a whole lot of confiidence.

GA: Oh

GA: I Suppose I Hadnt Considered That

TA: yeah...iit'2 probably better that ii 2tay away

GA: You May Be Right

GA: But I Want You To Come Anyways

TA: what? but ii ju2t told you that ii 2houldn't!

GA: And Im Requesting That You Come Anyway

GA: Is That A Problem

TA: ...

TA: well iif you're 2ure, then ii gue22 ii can be over there iin liike ten miinute2.

GA: Excellent

GA: Ill See You Then

\- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA] -

†††

Roxy arrived at Karkat's house about ten minutes later.

"John!" she called, knocking on the door. "John, are you in there?"

The door was flung open immediately, and one John Egbert was suddenly standing in front of her with wide, wild eyes. "Roxy!" he exclaimed upon seeing her. "Oh no—why are you here? Something happened, didn't it?" It wasn't really a question. He knew.

 _Well, damn. There's really not a good way to tell him this, is there?_ "Karkat, um…he…" She trailed off.

John's expression crumpled. "Give me to me straight, Rox. What happened?"

"He…he killed someone?" The question mark hooked its way onto the curve of the final letter before she could stop it. "Um, I mean—he _did_ kill someone. A prospitarian."

John just stared. "No he didn't."

"I _saw_ him do it, John. He did."

"But…" He shook his head, bemused. "That's impossible! He's gentle!"

"Well I saw that _gentle_ troll of yours tear right into a prospitarian with his sickles."

"That can't be. It can't! Why would he—?"

"Rose thinks it was caused by one of his hallucinations."

John's voice died off. Then, "Oh. Oh, yeah…I guess he wouldn't have known any better."

Roxy clasped a comforting hand to his shoulder, saying, "Rose asked me to come get you in person and bring you to the lab. Karkat's being held there at the moment, and she thinks you can help."

"Oh man, yeah…yeah, I'll go with you."

Together, they returned to the lab.

†††

Karkat stared up at the ceiling, eyes wide and blank. He couldn't see anything. Couldn't hear anything. Everything around him just felt fuzzy and warm, and he hated it. He hated this.

He barely remembered the past few hours. He remembered the horror of realizing he'd killed someone followed by the dull dread that had settled in his stomach as he realized that Gamzee had _planned_ this. His own mind, his hallucinations, his _everything_ had ganged up on him to make him a murderer. He hadn't killed the others, he _knew_ that he hadn't. But now he wasn't just the prime suspect, he was the prime suspect with _evidence_ that he had the heart to maim and kill his victims.

They were going to cull him for sure.

He almost started worrying, then, but a wave of drowsiness swept him off his feet before he could really get going. Oh _man…_ was this how Gamzee had felt on sopor slime? It was completely awful. He despised it. He could definitely get used to it.

The door opened, he thought. It swung open and then three chattering people were entering the room, and he recognized them immediately. A dopey grin spread across his face before he had the will to stop it.

"Oh my god!" John gasped. He was instantly at Karkat's side, hands soothing across his face, his chest, his shoulders. "Karkat, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

He tried to say something, but his whole body felt heavy and warm, and none of his muscles were really working except for the ones that were putting that stupid grin on his face.

"Karkat…" John whispered. Then he was turning and biting out, "What did you _do_ to him, Rose? He's practically catatonic!"

"Kanaya has assured me that he'll be fine," Rose said. "I had to find some way of keeping him calm, and she told me of how Gamzee used to subdue himself with sopor slime."

"Theriouthly?" Sollux hissed, psionics crackling between his horns. "KN _knowth_ how badly the thlime metthed GZ up, why the fuck would she ever thuggetht thomething like thith?"

"She seemed to agree that it was necessary," Rose responded curtly. "He brutally cut down one of the prospitarians, and I didn't want to take any risk that he'd hurt himself or others upon awakening. I shot the slime down his throat with a plastic syringe. He didn't struggle at all."

"I can't believe you!" Sollux hissed furiously. There was another pair of hands on him after that, claws pricking at his shoulders as the other troll shook him harshly. "KK, get the fuck up! You're better than thith, you mitherable wiggler! Do you _want_ to turn into GZ?"

"Sollux, take your hands off of him immediately!"

"Why the fuck should I? It'th obviouth that you don't know how to take care of him, and I'm sure _I_ can do better than _you!"_

"Don't lie to me, Captor!" Rose hissed. "From what Kanaya's told me of your relationship with Karkat, you'd tear him apart without even thinking!"

Sollux glared for a moment, claws starting to draw tiny trickles of blood. But then he sighed, releasing Karkat with a murmured, "Yeah, you're right. Thorry, Rothe."

She nodded. "It's fine. Now, if the two of you will come with me—"

"We can't leave him like this!" John gasped, fingertips stroking through Karkat's hair. Oh, that felt _good,_ too. A few notes of a rusty purr started up in the back of his throat.

"You can and you will," Rose said. "He doesn't know any better right now, nor does he care."

"But what about the hallucinations? What if they come back and no one's here to stop him from hurting himself?"

"The slime is preventing him from thinking anything right now, and he'll be hard pressed to move. The hallucinations won't be able to cause him harm."

He could barely hear them. The purr was building steadily with every movement of John's fingertips against his scalp, and that was really all he could process at the moment.

"Jegus, KK, you're embarathing yourthelf," Sollux snapped. He reached out and flicked at one of Karkat's horns, and the troll groaned weakly in response. "Thtop that! You're not thith weak!"

He had to disagree.

Rose cleared her throat. "Now, if you two would just come with me…"

John looked down at him. "Karkat, are you going to be okay here?"

He smiled dazedly, leaning into his moirail's palm. His voice still wouldn't work.

"He'll be fine," Sollux snapped. " _Hopefully._ And no more thlime after thith, you hear?"

"Of course," Rose said quaintly. "Now please, let's be off. There is much to discuss."

And so just like that they left, leaving Karkat to stare blankly at the shifting patterns on the ceiling.


	16. Rose: Prepare for War

**Sorry this is so short, I'm just kind of dealing with a lot of bullshit with moving into my dorm.**

 **Chapter 16:** **Rose: Prepare for War**

* * *

Dave had just settled in to sulk when he heard a familiar voice calling from outside his front door.

"Dave! Are you in there?"

He groaned. "Not now, Jade! I'm trying to mope!"

She tried the door. It was locked, just in case Karkat had tried to follow him. "This is a hell of a lot more important than your moping, Dave! Something really awful happened that you need to know about!"

For just a moment, his stomach twisted. Had Karkat gone and done something foolish because of what he'd said to him?

"Dave, open the door _right now_ or I will shrink you _and_ this house down until you're the size of ants, then I'll let Jake trample you!"

"Okay, okay!" he yelled, partially out of fear that something had happened to Karkat and partially out of fear that Jade really _would_ shrink him. "Hang on!" He dragged himself off the floor and popped the deadbolt. "Okay, come on in."

"Dave!" she greeted the instant she was inside, eyes shining with angry tears. "Something's happened!"

His stomach dropped. "What is it?"

She didn't even try to sugarcoat it. "Karkat killed one of the prospitarians!"

All the breath whooshed out of him in a single, rasping wheeze. "What?"

"He killed one of them, Dave! Just raised his sickles and sliced into her without mercy! And then he just _stood_ there like he hadn't done it!"

 _Karkat killed someone? Actually, willingly killed someone?_ There was so much he wanted to ask—why he'd done it, where he'd been, where he was now—but to his surprise, when he opened his mouth the first thing out of it was a weak, "Does Dirk know?"

Jade shook her head. "Not yet. For now they're keeping Karkat at the lab where he'll be safe, and I'm sure that Rose will tell everyone soon."

A whoosh of barely-regained breath left him. At least Dirk didn't know. If he did, he would probably already be over there with his katana buried in Karkat's gut. "Great…that's great."

"Rose wants you at the lab to be with Karkat," Jade told him. "She thinks you can help. She's called John and Sollux too, I think."

"Oh no," he said immediately. "I'm not seeing any of them again. Didn't you hear? Karkat took on John as a moirail while he was trying to date me!"

Jade stared. "So?"

"What do you mean, _so?_ So I can't date him! If he's going to go around kissing other guys and pitying them and all that shit, I can't be with him!"

More staring. "John is his moirail."

"Right."

Staaaaaaaare. "Dave, are you actually upset about Karkat having a best friend?"

"Moirails and best friends aren't the same thing! They kiss and cuddle and shit!"

Jade groaned. "Oh my god, you're ridiculous. Is this what Rose meant when she told me to fix your problems?"

"She told you to _fix_ me?" Dave spluttered, taken aback. "Why does everyone thing something's wrong with me? This is just what I think!"

"Well you think _wrong_ and you think _selfishly!"_

"God, why does everyone keep saying I'm selfish?"

"Because you ditched Karkat over having a moirail! That's like Kanaya telling Rose that she's not allowed to talk to any of her friends anymore! It's controlling and abusive and downright possessive, and you should be able to understand that you're acting like the stereotypical asshole of a boyfriend! Honestly, Dave, you've suffered through so much abuse in your life that you'd think you'd be able to refrain from pulling that kind of garbage on someone else!"

He blanched.

"Trolls are biologically different than humans, Dave! They're built to take more than one romantic partner, and having only one isn't healthy!"

"But—"

"No, listen! Humans are _made_ to have one romantic partner. We're made to love one person and one person only when it comes to romantic encounters, and it's usually not healthy to have more than one person stealing your affections, except for in _functional_ polyamorous relationships. But trolls are the exact opposite! They're made to have multiple partners, so they're equipped with the faculties to love more than one person just as much as a human would love _one_ romantic partner. Loving only one person is dangerous and unhealthy, and it affects them poorly. If you're asking Karkat to give up his moirail, you're asking him to alienate himself and _hurt_ himself just because you don't want to accommodate his need for other quadrants!"

His heart lurched. "Hurt? You think he's hurt?"

Jade threw up her hands. "Of course he's hurt! And so is John!"

"But…but don't you think this is weird? Having more than one person you're in love with?"

"Yeah, of course I do! I think it's _really_ weird—but if I had someone that I really loved, I'd rather support them through whatever quadrant-related endeavors _they chose_ to get involved in than lose them entirely!"

"He could just ditch John," he suggested weakly. "He could try for me."

 _"You_ could try for _him."_

"But I don't…"

"Don't do this to yourself, Dave," she pleaded. "If you decide to give Karkat the choice between his loving moirail and his controlling matesprit, I _know_ which one he'll pick—and so do you."

He did. And fuck, it was _painful._ He desperately wanted Karkat to just give up on having other quadrants and just settle down with him, but…if he was given the choice, Dave knew he'd be thrown right out on his ass. Karkat could find another matesprit if he really wanted to. One that wouldn't ask him to give up his other quadrants.

"I fucked up," he whispered.

"Yeah," Jade snorted. "You're telling me."

Dave shot to his feet from where he'd fallen down onto the couch, beginning to pace a hole in the floor. "Fuck. Fuck, what am I supposed to do?"

"Are you okay with Karkat filling his other quadrants?"

"Of course I'm not! But if it comes down to that or losing him…"

"Well if you'd realized that before you fought with him, this whole thing could have been avoided!"

He flinched. Shit, she was totally right. _I hate it. I hate it, and I'm not okay with the fact that Karkat wants to sit around kissing John. But I need to apologize for this, and then maybe we can work something out that will help both of us._

"Will you come with me now?" Jade requested, extending her hand.

He took it. "Yeah, let's go."

†††

 _"Sollux."_

Sollux blinked, head snapping up in search of the voice. It had seemed so familiar…

 _"Sollux, can you hear me?"_

He jumped as the voice came again. He was sitting alone in one of the spare rooms in the lab, fleeing to gain a bit of solitude as Karkat slept in the room over, and so he knew that it couldn't have been anyone around him. "Hello?" he called.

 _"We're going to krill you."_

Frowning, he called out, "FF? FF, ith that you?"

 _"I'm shore of it. You'll be dead soon, or just as comatose as poor Karkrab."_

It _was_ Feferi. He'd know those fish puns anywhere. The psionic jerked to his feet with a low hiss, energy crackling around him. _Am I hallucinating? Shit…did Karkat give me a case of the crazies?_

The dull sound of metal grating on concrete filled the room.

 _Great. Auditory hallucinations too, I see. Well, let's get this over with so I can go complain to Rose and have my stomach stuffed full of slime._

 _"Are you ready, Sollux? You're half dead already; it won't take much."_

"Jutht do it, then," he bit out. "Kill me tho I can get on with my day."

A light snicker.

And then, suddenly, everything _hurt._ Sollux screeched as he felt the tines of Feferi's trident stab right into his chest, very _real_ , very _solid_ , and it fucking _burned_.

 _It's the power of suggestion,_ he knew. _My brain thinks FF stabbed me, so it's making me feel pain._

But then he heard his blood hitting the ground, and _oh fuck,_ was this _actually_ real?

"FF?" he called out, but all he received was a deep, impenetrable silence in response. He was alone again, and he was bleeding all over the floor.

 _Well, that was an adventure._ He poked at his chest, stunned at the way his mustard-yellow blood was dripping down his chest and soaking into his shirt. _Huh. I should probably do something about this._

"KN!" he called out, making his way back into the main hall. "Can you do thomething for me?"

Kanaya didn't look up from where she was standing in the hall, phone in her hand as she messaged someone. "Yes, of course. What is it?"

"Can you tell me if I'm actually bleeding? Becauthe it might be in my think pan and I don't want to freak everyone out if I'm not really about to keel over."

"What?" Kanaya jerked her head up. Then she gasped, exclaiming, "Sollux! What on earth happened?"

"Oh, tho is that a yeth?"

Kanaya was already calling out for Rose, looping an arm beneath his shoulders as she did so that he wouldn't collapse. "Rose! Rose, we need help!"

 _Huh. So I might not be crazy…good to know._

†††

 _"Jade…um, can you, hear me?"_

Jade blinked. Paused.

Beside her, Dave asked, "Hey, are you okay? You slowed down for a moment."

She shook her head. They were in the middle of flying to Rose's lab; she couldn't afford to hesitate now. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that, Dave!"

 _"Um…is that a, yes?"_

She looked around again. _Tavros?_

 _"I'm the only one, um, that's left…I guess that it, affects highbloods before it works its way, um, down to the lowbloods like me. Like, a weird disease."_

She shook her head again. Why was she imagining Tavros's voice at a time like _this?_

 _"So, um, I thought that I'd try to, warn you, maybe? I mean, I've tried before, but you can never, um, actually hear me. Karkat's the only one that can, hear us, and I think Sollux is coming around thanks to being half dead. It would be, um, really great if, you would be able to hear me."_

"Tavros?" she breathed.

"What?" Dave called. He'd gotten a few feet ahead. "Did you say something?"

"N-no…no, I don't think I did."

 _"It's funny…for the past few, um, months, the six of us have been kind of flickering in and out of, existence and stuff, and, sometimes we would be in control and sometimes we, wouldn't. But now it's, um, time or something? You've got to make, a decision, I think."_

A decision? What…?

 _"Yeah…and until then, until you decide and then deal with, the consequences, we're just not going to be in our right, um, minds. I'm, the only one left now. Nepeta went a few, hours ago, which means I'm, next. So, um…sorry if I attack you?"_

"Jade, you're falling behind!"

 _"Um…good luck!"_

"Keep up!"

She did, and the voice didn't come back.

†††

"You saw Feferi?" Rose asked, eyes wide and worried. "She did this to you?"

"Yeah," Sollux muttered, wincing as Kanaya took to his wounds with antiseptic, John handing her whatever she needed. He'd lost a bit of blood, but he was heartier than he looked. He'd be fine. "FF told me that she wath going to kill me, then she ran me through with her trident."

"A hallucination?" Rose tried weakly. "Like Karkat's?"

"No fucking way that wath a halluthination," he snapped. "Do you think I could have done thith to _mythelf?"_

"Perhaps if you had the necessary supplies, you could have—"

He shook his head. "No, Rothe—I didn't do thith to mythelf. And FF ith _dead_ , tho I'm not sure how she got here."

"She couldn't _really_ have been here, could she?" Rose whispered. "Not if she's dead, and…"

"Dunno, Rothe, but doethen't it theem a little thuthpithiouth that thethe halluthinations are appearing to more than one perthon? Like, how likely is that?"

"Not very," she admitted softly. "I…I told Terezi I thought something else was going on here, but I never seriously considered that—"

New voices sounded suddenly in the doorway, cutting her off. "…was the weirdest thing, Dave, I swear!"

Sollux looked up as the people he recognized as Jade and Dave appeared in the doorway. Jade was jumping up and down with a concerned look on her face.

"Oh, Rose!" she called out upon seeing her. "Rose, I think I'm hearing things! Are hallucinations contagious?"

Rose seated herself with the abrupt urgency of someone that knew they were about to fall over. "You heard something too? Did the person attack you?"

"No, thank goodness!" Jade exclaimed. "It was Tavros, and he just talked to me for a while and said some really strange things!"

"What did he say to you?"

"Oh, he said something about being _the only one left,_ and that the _other five_ were going to try to kill us! He also apologized, like he thought that he was going to turn and attack us too."

Rose went pale. "Sollux, what did Feferi say to you?"

"That her and the other five were going to kill us."

She was white as a sheet now. "Oh goodness…Kanaya, do you think…?"

Kanaya stared quietly at the ground. Then she shook her head slowly, murmuring, "It's possible."

"What?" Sollux demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I…said something to Terezi about thinking that the murders couldn't have been any of us because of the way they were committed, and how I thought that it was impossible that Karkat had caused his own injuries back when he supposedly broke all his fingers."

"Wait a second!" John yelped. "You _knew_ that Karkat couldn't have hurt himself, but you _still_ told us that's what happened? Do you have _any idea_ how torn up all of us were about that?" He almost looked to Dave, but quickly averted his gaze. They must have fought recently, Sollux thought.

"I didn't know what else to tell you," Rose whispered. "Hallucinations can't be _real,_ can't be _physical,_ and all other explanations were completely absurd! I suspected Karkat hadn't done it to himself, but what else was I supposed to tell you?"

"The truth!" Dave broke in, looking just as furious as John. "You caused us _so much_ fucking painover this!"

"This isn't the point," Rose insisted, though she looked thoroughly shaken. "The point is the murders, and who caused them—because it _wasn't_ Karkat."

"It wasn't?" Jade asked, looking almost offended at the suggestion. "But we saw him kill that prospitarian! It had to have been him!"

"He _did_ kill that prospitarian, I don't think there can be any doubt of that. But he isn't responsible for the others. Not by a long shot."

"Then who were they?" Jade questioned.

Rose looked around at all of them, her gaze like a chilly breeze. "This is going to sound absurd."

Sollux snorted. "More abthurd than FF attacking me in the lab?"

"Just as absurd, actually," Rose said. "I believe that the figments are the ones killing the villagers."

Silence.

Then a collective, _"What?"_

Rose closed her eyes as if she were in pain. "Let me explain. After I began to suspect that the murders weren't what they appeared, I went to Terezi and asked about the distinct killing patterns of all six deceased trolls—and all of those killing patterns match how the villagers were killed _exactly."_

Kanaya's eyes widened. "You…you're right! Goodness, I hadn't even noticed!"

"Wait, wait, wait," Sollux insisted. "Kanaya, you told me about the murderth, but you didn't thay anything about how they were committed."

"Well," she said, "the first one was committed with two claw-like weapons, which was why some of us immediately assumed that Karkat was responsible. But the neck was also snapped, and there was a flurry of tiny cuts that we couldn't explain. Looking back on it, though, those injuries exactly match Nepeta's style of fighting. Leave lots of tiny gashes to weaken the opponent, then go straight for the neck with force that often leaves it broken."

"NP hath three clawth, though," Sollux pointed out. "You thaid there were two gashes."

"Her claws aren't biological," Kanaya said. "If one broke off in the attack, or if she retracted one, there would only have been two left to make the marks."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. What about the otherth?"

Rose took over. "Another murder left behind a body that was riddled with plasma holes."

He growled. "ED."

She nodded. "And another produced a body sporting three identical spear-marks down the torso. That would be Feferi. The last gave us the body of a villager that had been beaten to a pulp, which would be Equius."

Once again, there was silence. Everyone was caught up in trying to absorb the information that had just been thrown their way.

"So those hallucinations…"

"…weren't hallucinations at all," Rose confirmed softly. "Karkat was right."

More silence. Then, "Oh, fuck…we've been telling him he was insane this whole time and he's _not?"_

"More importantly," Kanaya broke in, "why is Karkat the only one that's been able to see them until now?"

"His guilt," Rose explained. "I don't think I was wrong about that. He was so tortured about what happened in his past that he _wanted_ to see them, _wanted_ them to punish him—and so he did, and they did. Somehow they're _here,_ drifting around after the destruction of their dream bubbles, and it looks like they're going just as insane as we _thought_ Karkat was."

"But they should have been sucked into the black hole!" Jade burst out. "Destroyed along with their dream bubbles!"

Sollux paused. "Wait, what are you guyth talking about? That'th not a black hole."

Everyone froze. Then there were multiple pairs of eyes locked on him, each filled with equal amounts of disbelief and confusion.

"What," he said awkwardly, "did you not know that?"

"How did _you_ know that?" Kanaya asked gently.

"Well…" Then he paused. How _had_ he known that?

"One of your memories," Rose guessed. "One of the memories from the past few months, returning to you upon hearing a trigger word or phrase. _Black hole_ in this case, if I'm right."

"Yeah, that…that thoundth right?" It _did_ sound right, now that he was thinking about it. The black hole wasn't a _real_ black hole, it was—

"What is the black hole, then?" Rose asked. "Do you know?"

"It'th a gateway."

"And what does that mean?"

He hesitated. Frowned. "I…don't know. I'm thorry."

She nodded. "Well if you remember anything else, it would be much appreciated. For now, we should try to focus on how exactly the souls of the deceased trolls are here, and what we should do to prevent further attacks."

"It'th a choithe," Sollux said, then wished that he hadn't as everyone stared at him _again._ This time he didn't wait for Rose to prompt him as he said, "I remember a little…it'th a choithe offered to you by the game, I think. But that'th all I recall." He closed his eye, murmuring, "The perthon that wath with me knew everything about it. She thent me here to warn you about all thith, about what'th coming for uth, but the metthage was lotht when I went through the gateway."

"You went through the gateway?" Rose asked. "As in, you jumped into the black hole and it took you here?"

"Yeah," he said, then blinked as he realized that it was true. "Yeah, I did."

"Then…" Rose looked to Kanaya, a glint in her eye. "Is it really so hard to believe that when the souls of the other trolls were sucked into the black hole, they came out here?"

"But then _all_ the souls would be here," Dave protested. "And I don't see more than one of each of us floating around."

"Perhaps the gateway has a built in filter?" Rose suggested. "Only sending to each timeline those beings that belong."

"Then what happens to the souls from doomed timelines? Are they just shit outta luck?"

Rose bowed her head, thinking for a moment. Then she raised her head and said, "I think I have a theory."

"Well then shoot," John said with a small, tired smile. "Blow us all away, Rose."

She nodded. "Then sit back, because this is going to be a long one."

It was.

She started slow. "I am not certain about all of this, nor am I even remotely convinced of my knowledge being _somewhat_ correct. But using what little information we've managed to glean from this disaster, I would be willing to make a tentative hypothesis. First of all, as Sollux has confirmed, we know that the black hole is no such thing—rather, it is a gateway of sorts, sucking in the souls of those in the furthest ring and spitting them out someplace else. Again, this would explain why the souls of the deceased trolls are here, drifting listlessly about in a sort of half-here-half-not state. It would not, however, explain why the gateway would have spit _only_ the souls of those from our alpha timeline into this universe, created by us upon our victory. If the gateway was just randomly flinging people about, the probability of ending up with only souls from the alpha timeline is next to nil. So then, it's clear that there has to be some kind of filter within the black hole, selecting for certain individuals and sending them to predetermined places. Otherwise, we would no doubt be stuck with a plethora of strange characters, most not from our timeline. We may have even ended up with multiple versions of the same person—and I don't know about you, but I'm less than inclined to deal with more than one murder clown running around wreaking havoc and psychologically tormenting our dear friend."

Sollux snorted. " _That'th_ an underthtatement."

Rose nodded. "But the question remains, just why would this gateway return the souls of our friends to us? And where is it sending the souls of those living in splintered timelines? To those ends I offer this: the gateway is obviously filtering the souls and sending only those souls from the same timeline to the same place. In our universe, where we won, we received the souls of all the versions of our departed friends that we knew and interacted with throughout our journey. I imagine it would be similar in other universes. So in theory, there should be thousands upon thousands of pocket dimensions, or alternate universes, in which twenty souls have been contained—twelve trolls and eight humans in each. Granted, I have no way to prove that these separate universes exist. It's entirely possible that those from doomed timelines _were_ obliterated when they entered the gateway, as it was only searching for those of our session—the session that succeeded amongst millions of failures."

"But you didn't answer the question," John pointed out. "Why would the game be doing this?"

Rose ran a hand through her hair, neatening the places where a few strands had slipped out of place. "Honestly? To me, it appears as if the game is trying to reward us."

"Reward us?" Dave protested. "How the fuck is this supposed to reward us? They're trying to killeveryone!"

"I don't think that was intended," Rose murmured. "Remember how Sollux attacked you when he passed through the black hole? He wasn't in his right mind, and it was as if something had scrambled his brains."

"Well, yeah, but he snapped out of it!"

"You beat him," Rose corrected. "You beat him and _returned_ him to his rightful state of mind. The souls, on the other hand, have not been beaten. They are running rampant, suffering the aftereffects of being passed through the gateway, unable to return to their original state of mind because no one can best them due to their apparent lack of _permanent_ physical substance. Or, alternatively, because they are no longer living or even _half-_ living like Sollux."

"Still not sounding like a fucking reward, Rose."

She huffed, "I'm getting there! Now—it's obvious that as time has gone on, the souls have grown more and more powerful. They've grown closer and closer to full tangibility, as is evidenced by the way that other people beside Karkat have begun to see them, and Karkat has started to become more and more affected by them. So it stands to reason that eventually, as they build up energy, they will be able to appear fully and permanently physical."

"Do you think they'll _stay_ that way?" Kanaya asked curiously.

"Yes, I do. I believe that once they are able to maintain physical form, it will be permanent. They will, in effect, be brought back to life."

 _And there's the reward,_ Sollux thought. His stomach flipped at the thought of having Feferi back.

"No way," John whispered. "We could have them all back? Just like that?"

"Not exactly, I'm afraid. Like I said, they aren't in their right mind. The black hole has twisted them, started to make them lose their minds one by one, and theoretically we will need to _beat_ them if we want them to return to normal, effectively performing a hard reset. That entails taking down six trolls, most of whom are quite deadly."

For a third time, there was silence as everyone took in the possibility that they'd have to fight their friends.

"This is insane," Dave said finally. "Too much for me to process. Sorry, Rose, but the Strider express has left the station."

"It's a possibility," she said. "Not an inevitability. But if I'm right, and if these souls are gaining power to the point of becoming tangible, we will need to be ready to deal with them. We'll be given a choice—try to get them back, or just obliterate them."

"The others will need to know," Jade realized. "We should have a meeting."

"Yes," Rose agreed, "definitely. But first, I think—"

 _"Aww, now that is just a motherfucking miracle like no other! Look at all of you, figuring everything right the fuck out!"_

Everyone froze.

"Did you just hear…?" Dave asked, skin pale.

 _"Looks like we'll be all up and fighting a lot sooner than I expected! Better get your game on, motherfuckers, because we're_ ready."

Then it was gone, and everyone exchanged horrified glances.

"Oh, fuck," Dave whispered. "This is really happening. That really just happened."

Sollux felt a chill run down his spine. "Yeah, that wath definitely GZ."

"Yes," Kanaya agreed, eyes wide and scared. "I'll never forget the smell of his blood."

John whooshed out a pained breath. "What do we do? What _can_ we do?"

"That's simple." Rose snapped her fingers, and a heartbeat later there was a familiar wand appearing in her right hand, tip sparkling with electric light. "We protect each other. We look after each other. We make sure that _no one_ is _ever_ left alone for more than a moment. We prepare. And then, when the time comes…" She swept her gaze from person to person. "…We _fight."_

For a moment, no one spoke. But then Kanaya gave a fierce nod, eyes flashing as she announced, "I will fight with you. No matter how crazy all this is, we've all just seen proof that it's real. We have no choice but to fight if we want to keep our world."

Sollux chimed in next. "I bet I can blatht half of thothe lotherth off the gogdamn planet before they know what hit 'em."

"And I'll blow away whoever you don't get," John agreed, fist grinding into the palm of his other hand.

"We're in too!" Jade chimed, throwing an arm around Roxy. "I bet we could really do some damage if we pair space with void; no one will be able to touch us!" She looked expectantly to Dave. "Right?"

Dave just stared, jaw slack. Then he shrugged, albeit somewhat stiffly, and said, "What the hell. I'm in."

The corners of Rose's lips quirked upwards. "Well then, it looks like we have a war to prepare for. Shall we begin?"


	17. Gamzee: Silence Him

**Things are about to get...spicy.**

 **Chapter 17:** **Gamzee: Silence Him**

* * *

\- gallowsCalibrator [GC] started trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -

GC: OK4Y ROS3 1M N34RLY HOM3

GC: 1 TH1NK 1M 4 F3W D4YS OFF OF WH3R3 YOU GUYS S3T UP YOUR DUMB L4B

GC: SO 1 SHOULD B3 4BL3 TO DO WH4T 1 C4N TO H3LP K4RK4T SOON :]

GC: . . .

GC: YOUR3 NOT TH3R3 4R3 YOU

GC: OH W3LL GU3SS 1LL JUST H4V3 TO SURPR1S3 YOU

GC: S33 YOU 1N 4 F3W D4YS

\- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -

†††

"Looks like the cat's finally out of the bag, Karbro."

Karkat looked up blearily, still under the effects of the slime Rose had dosed him with a day or so prior. The stuff was _strong._ How had Gamzee lived with consuming as much of it as he normally did?

"Your friends are real motherfucking clever, you know that?"

He tracked Gamzee with his eyes as he moved, pacing back and forth in the otherwise empty holding cell. "You look real," he rasped. "Tangible."

Gamzee sneered at him. "I'm real motherfucking tangible right now, motherfucker! I'm almost breathing again!"

Karkat sucked in a breath as if in mockery. Then, "You made me kill that prospitarian." His voice was shaky, weak. He hated it.

"You bet I did! What a motherfucking rush that was, too…seeing her blood all spraying out of her body was a motherfucking _miracle!"_

He managed a sluggish snarl as Gamzee drifted closer, curling a hand in his hair.

"And now your friends have all up and locked you in here for your own good, and that's just another motherfucking miracle in and of itself, because now I can up and do what I need to do with you!"

"W-what do you mean?" he stammered. He didn't like the look in his former moirail's eyes. It was dark. Ominous.

Gamzee just drawled on, either ignorant or uncaring of Karkat's whirring emotions. "Can't have you all up and ruining my plan, can I? Gotta make sure that everyone's nice and distracted so we can pick them off _one by motherfucking one._ "

His entire body seized weakly with dread. "Are you going to k-kill me?"

"No way, motherfucking best friend!" he chuckled. "If I just up and kill you, everyone will get over it in a day! But if I make them think there's hope of recovery, then it'll keep them all distracted and shit for _so much longer."_

He nearly choked. What was Gamzee going to do to him?

"Don't worry, best friend—it doesn't hurt. Feels good, actually, though I've never had as much as you're about to."

 _That_ certainly didn't make him feel better. But what made him feel even _worse_ was when Gamzee flicked his wrist and two items appeared out of his sylladex, crashing to the ground. _Oh gog…_

"There we go," Gamzee purred. "Motherfucking _miracles."_

Karkat winced as the clown troll climbed up onto the cot beside him, both items held in hand. "N-no, please—!"

He received a snarl and a slap to the face for his trouble. "Close your motherfucking mouth, Karbro, and this'll all be over soon." And then Gamzee forcefully made him do the opposite, wrenching his jaws open and beginning to force-feed him the strongest sopor he'd ever tasted in his life. He spluttered the instant the stuff hit his tongue, trying to spit it out or do _anything_ to keep it away from his stomach. But then Gamzee's hand clasped down on his mouth and nose, the length of his body pinning him to the cot so that he couldn't so much as move a muscle. _No, no, no, I can't! I can't eat any more of this stuff or I'll go comatose!_

"That's a good little motherfucker," Gamzee purred, rubbing at Karkat's throat as he was finally forced to swallow. "It's okay, my little miracle—you won't be struggling much once we get a little more into you."

He nearly started crying. _He's going to kill me!_

"Think Rose'll be all up and minding that I stole some of the slime from that weird container thing she has out there?" Gamzee asked, not really sounding like he cared. He was too busy shoving another dose of slime down Karkat's throat, smirking when tears started prickling at the corners of his eyes. "No?"

His head was already going fuzzy. _No, I can't let him…_

Another dose of slime was forced into him, and this time Gamzee didn't need to clamp a hand over his nose to get him to swallow it. His traitorous body took it in for him, pan blurring and not really caring what his body was ingesting.

"Aww, there you go," Gamzee chuckled. "Starting to feel better now, Karbro?"

He groaned weakly, then whimpered when he was force-fed another dose. His muscles were completely lax now. Even if Gamzee weren't on him, he couldn't possibly struggle.

"Just a little more," the clown troll urged. "Just be a good little motherfucker and swallow just a little more, and then you'll be all up and out of the action for good."

He could feel it. He could feel his pan going.

Another dose. Then another, and another. And then Gamzee was feeding him one more, and it was over.

He couldn't think. What wasthinking supposed to feel like?

"Can you hear me, Karbro?"

He couldn't.

Gamzee chuckled. "Guess my work's all done here, motherfucker. Have fun with that."

He was gone. Karkat didn't even notice.

†††

Sometime later, John arrived to bring Karkat the news of his release.

"Karkat!" John gasped, tearing into his cell at breakneck speed. "Karkat, I've got great news—you're not crazy!"

There was no response. Karkat just lay there, stretched out across the bed, and stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Did you hear that?" John asked excitedly, walking further into the holding cell. "We just figured it out! Just now we figured it _all_ out, and Rose said I can let you out! I know you spent a few pretty miserable days in here, but I'm sure we can get you back to normal in a snap!"

Still, there was nothing.

"Karkat?" he breathed, beginning to look nervous. "What is it? Is it the nightmares, or the hallucinations? No, wait—they're not actually hallucinations!"

Karkat wasn't responding to him. John stared down at the troll in alarm, shaking him lightly and praying that he'd just _snap out of it_ and be magically okay. But he wasn't waking up, he wasn't doing much of _anything—_ and he was starting to get _extremely_ worried. Hadn't Sollux said something about sopor slime wrecking the people it was used on? But that couldn't be it! Rose had promised to give Karkat only that one dose, and that had been days ago! He should be fine by now!

"Well?" Sollux called from outside the doorway. "Ith he okay or what?"

"Um…" John stared down into Karkat's eyes for just a moment before they slipped closed and the final hints of red were hidden from sight. "I'm not sure…he's really weak, and he's not responding!"

 _"What?"_

John looked up as Sollux appeared in the doorway, bristling with alarm. That alarm only grew when he saw Karkat slumped lifelessly across the bed.

"Oh, fuck!" Sollux hissed. "KN! KN, in here!"

And then Kanaya was there. She sucked in a sharp breath the instant she saw Karkat. "Oh no! But Rose was so careful with dosage!"

"Dosage?" John echoed. "So this is about that slime stuff?"

"Yeah," Sollux confirmed, dropping to his knees at Karkat's side and tapping his cheek lightly. "Come on, KK, don't do thith!"

"What's wrong with him?" he demanded. The horrified expression on Kanaya's face matched with the way Sollux was snarling was striking fear into his heart.

"Fucking overdothe or thome shit," Sollux explained in a clipped tone. "Thith only happenth when you have too much, but Rothe promithed—" Then he froze, expression turning deadly. _"Rothe."_

"Sollux, no!" Kanaya cried, moving to stop him as he slunk for the doorway. "It's not her fault!"

"Like hell it ithn't! If she gave him more dotheth after I _told_ her that it would wreck him, it'th her fucking fault!"

Kanaya blanched. "I'm sure she didn't…"

"Look at him, KN! That doethn't jutht _happen!"_

John looked back to Karkat. _Oh no, he looks really bad…like he's not even there anymore._

"I…" Kanaya trailed off helplessly. Then she set her jaw. "No…you're right. Rose must have made some mistake."

"Hmm? Was there a fault in some act I performed?"

Rose was standing in the doorway.

"Rose!" Kanaya exclaimed, sounding relieved. "It looks like there's been a little error in—"

Sollux pushed her out of the way, his anger a brick wall of force as he glowered at the suspected perpitrator. "Did you fucking _poithon_ my kithmethith?"

John blinked. _Kismesis? When did…?_

Rose stepped back in surprise. "What? No, I didn't poison him!"

Sollux growled. "Let me clarify—did you give him more of that gogdamn thlime?"

Her eyes went wide. "Of course not! You warned me that he may lose himself if I did, so I kept away from him!"

The dull crackle of psionics turned into a roar, and Rose was suddenly choking for breath against the far wall. _"Tell the truth!"_

"Sollux!" Kanaya cried out, "put her down!"

Sollux just snarled, power thrumming between his horns. "Thith moron may have jutht fried KK's brain! She detherveth to suffer!"

"Sollux, _no!"_ There was movement too swift to follow, the revving of a chainsaw, and Rose slid to the ground with a gasp as Sollux was thrown to the ground like a ragdoll.

"But KN—!"

"You will _not_ kill my matesprit!" Kanaya brandished her chainsaw threateningly. She hadn't used it, thank god—Sollux seemed fine—but it was held aloft before her as a very real threat. "I know you're upset about Karkat, I am too! But I cannot allow you to take out your anger on someone that didn't understand what they were doing!"

"I fucking _told_ her what the thlime would do!"

"Yes, but—"

Rose cut them both off. "There must be some mistake! I didn't do anything to Karkat!"

Sollux turned his furious gaze on the sleeping troll, and John found himself holding his moirail close just in case the psionic decided to go for him, too. "Like hell you didn't! Look at him and _tell_ me you didn't shove more thlime down hith throat!"

Rose's gaze swung to Karkat, confused. Then she moved closer, crouching beside John, and pressed a hand to the trolls' forehead. "He's cool," she whispered. "And he's breathing so slowly…" She turned back to Sollux with wide eyes. "This is the effect of sopor slime when ingested in large quantities?"

"Yeth, and _you_ did thith to him!" Sollux spat. "He'th in deeper than I've ever theen even GZ!"

Kanaya agreed with a hesitant nod. "Rose, how much did you give him?"

"I told you, I only gave him a small amount to calm him down initially!" She flicked her wrist, and then she was holding a plastic syringe in one hand. "I gave him one fourth this dosage, and that was nearly two days ago. That's all."

"Wait, what?" Kanaya looked confused. "Are you sure?"

"Certain, unless someone has been giving him…" She trailed off with a horrified look. Then she turned on heel and vanished. When she returned a minute later, she was carrying a large container tinged green with slime. "This is all the slime in the building," she announced. "I alchemized it one large batch to avoid the hassle of making more every time we needed it. I only removed a small amount to give to Karkat on that first day, but after that it remained untouched. If more is missing than I removed…" She clicked the lid off the container, and a sharp gasp broke the air as they all saw that a _lot_ of the slime was missing.

"What the fuck?" Sollux snapped, voicing what they were all thinking. "Why is tho much mithing?"

Rose shook her head, expression stricken. "I don't know! It's as if someone just came in here and…" She trailed off.

"No," Kanaya whispered. "You don't think…?"

Sollux snarled viciously, the sound low and threatening. "Fucking _Gamzee!_ If he crept in here and drugged KK beyond repair, I'm going to fucking _murder_ him!"

Kanaya just stared, features twisted in horror. "Oh goodness…if Gamzee gave him even _half_ what's missing with his small frame and low tolerance, it's a miracle he's still breathing."

John felt his heart stutter in his chest. "This could have killed him?"

"It'th no different than overdothing on thleeping medth or thome shit," Sollux said. "The thlime ith thuppothed to keep you calm and thedated while you thleep, but if you ingest it, you can end up really metthed up in the head. GZ uthed it to keep himthelf from going out of his pan, but he wath a highblood who wath _uthed_ to conthuming it, tho he had a high toleranthe."

"Karkat is the exact opposite," Kanaya confirmed. "Lowbloods have a lower tolerance to these things in general, but because Karkat has never consumed sopor slime in any medium, having even a small amount would hit him hard. Having _that_ amount…" She gestured to the half-empty container. "Well. As I said, this isn't good."

"Is there anything we can do?" John asked desperately. He was brushing his hands through Karkat's hair now, hoping for any kind of reaction. "Is there a cure or something?"

 _"No_ there'th not a cure!" Sollux snapped. "Ith there a magical cure for humath when they take too much of a thertain medithine?"

John shrank back. "N-no…"

"Then _why_ would it be any different for trollth?"

"Actually…" Rose hummed thoughtfully. "It's possible, if this incident occurred recently enough, that we maybe able to pump whatever slime we can out of his stomach. It won't change the fact that his body has most likely absorbed much of it already, but it will certainly help."

"Pump hith thtomach?" Sollux asked, wrinkling his nose. "What the fuck doeth that mean?"

"Make him throw up," Rose explained. "It could get some of the slime out."

"Do you really think that will work?"

Rose shrugged. "It can't hurt to try."

"Then we should do it now," Kanaya said curtly. "The longer we wait, the more slime he absorbs, and the higher a chance there is that he may not wake up."

 _May not…wake up…?_

"John," Kanaya said, "please step back. I will carry him to the lab."

He got to his feet immediately, protesting, "I should be with him!"

She shook her head. "No, John. This is going to be messy, and I _promise_ you that you don't want to see your moirail like this."

"But what if he needs me?"

"He's not coherent enough to need anyone right now," Kanaya told him gently. "Please, John—stay away from him until we come to find you. We'll tell you the instant we know how things are going."

"But…" He trailed off, shooting Karkat a helpless glance. "I should be with my moirail, shouldn't I…?"

Rose cleared her throat. "I would listen to Kanaya. And besides, I'd like you to go find Dave and tell him what's happened."

John flinched, remembering all too well what had happened the last time he'd spoken to Dave. "Oh, um…we had a really big fight just before Karkat ended up here, so I don't think—"

"Then this is the perfect time to go work things out," Rose interrupted. "If…if things go poorly, then you'll need each other."

 _If things go poorly. If they can't make Karkat wake back up again._

"O-okay," he choked out, wincing at the strained sound of his voice. "Yeah, I can…I can talk to Dave."

"Good," Rose soothed. Her expression was gentle, pitying. "Leave now, John. We'll take care of Karkat."

It hurt more than he wanted to admit. But still he pulled himself to his feet and half-staggered for the door. He was surprised to feel a hand skirt over his shoulder as he passed, the gesture almost comforting—and when he looked back, he saw Sollux giving him a pained look.

 _We'll do what we can,_ the psionic seemed to be whispering. _Don't worry._

It didn't help. He worried.

†††

Dave leaned against the wall of some random room in the lab, eyes closed as he thought.

 _I have to fix this,_ he knew. _John has already gone to fetch Karkat from the holding cell, and then we'll see each other again and we'll both be mad, but I have to make things right. I was being an idiot, and I have to tell him that I've realized that. I can tell him and then we can work something out to help both of us cope. Karkat needs his quadrants, I understand that now, but…_

He sighed, leaning his head back into the wall. He'd be lying if he said he was comfortable with the whole situation. But as he'd said to Jade, if it came down to sharing Karkat or losing him completely, he knew which option he'd take.

 _This is just so messed up…and now I'm going to have to apologize to John, too, when I next see him. God, I hope I haven't messed things up beyond repair with him. And Karkat too. If he's moved on because I tried to make him dump his moirail, I don't know what I'll do._

Still…he didn't think he was ready to face John. Whenever he thought of the inevitable encounter between them, all he wanted to do was hide his face and—

"Dave."

Wow. Wow, that was perfect timing.

John stepped into the room. His shoulders were slumped, and his eyes were dull behind his glasses. "Uh, hey. Can we talk?"

He immediately got the feeling that something was wrong. Something _beside_ the fact that he'd basically best-friend-dumped John the last time they'd spoken. "Yeah dude, of course. Come enjoy the freezing cold, barren lab with me."

John didn't flash even a flicker of a smile at him. His face was completely lax, devoid of emotion. He looked exhausted. Silently, he stumbled fully into the room and chose the nearest wall to lean against, sliding to the floor with a dull thud.

"Woah, are you okay?" Dave asked, flying to his side the instant it happened. "You're looking a little down."

John looked up. "No, actually…I don't think I'm okay."

Dave bit his lip. "Is this because of what I said to you and Karkat before I flew off? Because I've been meaning to—"

"Gamzee got to Karkat."

His blood ran cold. "What?"

"Gamzee got to him," John repeated, gaze locked on the ground. "Somehow got into his cell and shoved a whole lot of that slime stuff right down his throat."

"He forced him to _eat_ the slime?" Dave asked, bemused. "But why?"

John sniffed. "Apparently it's like a really powerful sedative. I…I don't think he wanted Karkat to wake up again."

It was as if the breath had been stolen from his lungs. "But he's going to wake up, isn't he?" he asked desperately. "I need to tell him a whole bunch of really important shit, so he _has_ to wake up!"

"T-they don't know," John stuttered. His eyes were shiny now, wet with the beginnings of unshed tears. "They took him into the lab to try to get some of the slime out of his stomach before his body can absorb it, but they just don't _know._ Sollux and Kanaya were acting like it was really, _really_ bad!"

"Who's with him now?"

"Sollux, Kanaya, and Rose. They're doing what they can, but…"

He looked away. Even through his shades, he knew that John would be able to see how shaken up he was. "Fuck."

"Yeah…" And then John did laugh, though it was watery and weak. "Rose asked me to come talk to you about it. Thought you should know."

"Even though I was a complete asshole to Karkat the last time we spoke? And to you?"

John nodded shakily. "I think that Karkat still really cares about you, even if you were being an idiot." Then he paused. "Have, um…you realized that you were being an idiot?"

"Yeah," he sighed begrudgingly. "Doesn't mean I'm happy about the quadrants thing, but I think I'd rather share his love than lose him entirely."

"There's not much sharing going on," John said with a frown. "Trolls have different kinds of love for each quadrant, it's not just one big lump that has to be split four ways. He loves you in an entirely different way than he loves me."

"That's what everyone keeps saying," Dave said, "but the whole thing still weirds me right the fuck out the door. I don't know…I guess this is one of those things that I'll just have to find a way to cope with."

John rubbed at the back of his head awkwardly. "Yeah, well…to be fair, I'd be weirded out too if I came downstairs to see someone I was romantically attracted to kissing another guy. I'm…I'm really sorry, Dave, I should have told you sooner."

Dave felt a momentary flicker of anger as he recalled how he'd felt, coming downstairs to exactly that scene. But then he shook his head, and it was gone. "I don't think you need to apologize, dude. Karkat didn't want you to tell anyone, right?"

"No, he didn't. He never said it out loud, but I'm sure he thought you'd…" Then he trailed off, blushing the embarrassed blush of someone who thought he'd said something he wasn't supposed to.

"He thought I'd get angry and either kick you out or do something drastic," Dave finished with a sigh. "Which is exactly what I did."

"He was going to tell you eventually, I think," John offered. "He just seemed like he was waiting until he could bring it up subtly." Then he giggled. "That didn't work out too well, huh?"

"Not one bit."

"Hmm…" John smiled just a little. Then he frowned, saying, "Um, Dave? Do you understand that I'm going to keep being Karkat's moirail? I don't think I could handle leaving him, and, well…"

He knew what John was saying. "So, you're planning on kissing him and cuddling him and all that shit?"

John flinched, drawing back in obvious preparation to be yelled at.

Seeing that flinch, like an animal shying away from its abuser, made Dave immediately feel awful about pretty much everything he'd done in the past two days. More awful than he already had, anyways. "I'm not going to yell at you, dude."

"You…you're not?"

He sighed. "No. I'm not really comfortable with this whole thing, like I said, but…it's obvious that Karkat needs that. From you." He waved a hand awkwardly in his friend's direction. "I'm not going to lie and say that I'm okay with you kissing the guy around me, though. So…maybe save it for the pile? When I'm _not_ sleeping upstairs?"

"Oh!" A relieved smile broke out across John's face as he began to nod so vigorously that Dave was afraid his brain was about to start leaking out his ears. "Yeah, of course!"

The idiot looked so relieved, it nearly made Dave's poker face crack into an all-out grin. _This is the right thing,_ he thought, and he truly believed it. _John needs Karkat just as much as I do, and_ he _needs both of us. I shouldn't feel jealous over something that's making him so happy._ "So are we good?" he asked coolly. "You forgive me for snapping and pretty much causing this whole mess?"

"If you're willing to try and deal with the whole quadrant system, I'm willing to forgive you for just about anything," John said, a goofy grin on his face. "But…none of this is going to matter if we can't get Karkat to wake up."

"He'll wake up," he said, ignoring the deep, aching pain that had just flared back to life in his chest. "He's a feisty little guy."

John didn't look reassured. "Yeah, but Gamzee forced a _lot_ of that slime into him. I'm just not sure…"

"Hey." Dave bopped him on the top of the head. "It's going to be fine. Rose is going to get as much of that stuff out of his stomach as she can, and after that it's just a matter of waiting for it to run its course. And besides, didn't Kanaya mention something about Sollux being good with computers and codes and stuff? If there's anything at all he can help us alchemize to help Karkat, I'm sure he'll do it."

"Well…" John hesitated. "I guess you're right, but…I'm still so worried!"

"Save the worrying for if there's something _really_ wrong," Dave teased. "Now why don't we go hang around in the main room and wait for Rose to come tell us something about what's happening?"

John nodded, looking somewhat relieved now. "Yeah, that sounds good. I'm sure that Karkat will be fine!"

"Good, because he will be!" And if only he could believe his own words, he would feel a hell of a lot better about the whole miserable situation.

†††

Some time later, they'd done all they could for Karkat.

"Do you think it'll be enough?" Kanaya whispered, glancing at Sollux out of the corner of one eye.

The psionic didn't return her gaze. He was too busy staring down at the inert form of his kismesis, slumped out over one of the cots in the space that was now being used as an infirmary. A bit of slime was still crusted onto the right corner of his mouth, and he reached out to wipe it away. "It'll _have_ to be enough."

Kanaya was silent. She just leaned back against the counter and stared along with him, watching the way Karkat's chest was rising and falling in an abnormally slow rhythm. It wasn't a good sign.

They'd gotten as much of the slime out of his system as they could, which had actually been more than he'd been expecting. The process had been messy, and Karkat had been completely unconscious for the majority of it, but it had worked. Sollux wished there was more they could do, but there wasn't much that could help someone who had taken in copious amounts of sopor slime beyond making them vomit up whatever was left in their stomach. Normally when this happened (which wasn't often, mind you; Sollux had only ever heard rumors) the afflicted troll either remained asleep until they died or woke up not quite right in the head. Sollux had no idea if it was possible to restore a victim to their normal self, seeing as he'd never had to deal with it before. He hoped that it was—or otherwise, he hoped that the damage hadn't been too severe. If Karkat managed to pull himself back, it wouldn't be good to find out that he was completely whacked out of his pan.

"So," Rose said softly, "do you think he'll wake up?"

Kanaya shook her head helplessly. "Neither Sollux nor I have ever had to deal with this sort of thing, so we're not sure. I do believe that we've helped him, though, judging by the amount of slime we managed to get out of his stomach. Best case scenario, he'll just sleep for a few days and then wake up as if nothing ever happened. Worst case, he'll never wake up again. It all depends on the amount of slime his body absorbed before we got to him."

Sollux felt psionics beginning to buzz in his ears. "It shouldn't have happened," he hissed. "We should have figured it out thooner, helped KK when we had the chanthe!"

"Yes, but we didn't," Kanaya soothed. "And now we have to deal with the consequences. Becoming upset won't change anything."

She had a point, but that didn't make him feel any better.

Kanaya turned to Rose. "All we can do for him now is wait for him to sleep it off. Perhaps we should call John and Dave in?"

She nodded. "Yes, I believe that leaving him alone with his quadrants would be best. Perhaps they can help to coax him back out of this."

Sollux almost laughed at the thought of someone kneeling beside Karkat and begging him to wake up, just like one of those shitty romcoms the guy was always going on about. _This is real life, not a movie. That shit's not going to work._

Rose straightened. "Kanaya, let's go fetch John and Dave. Sollux, you will stay here with him."

Then they left, and he waited for Karkat's other quadrants to arrive.

* * *

 _ **Pa22word?**_

* * *

Dave's heart lurched when he walked into the room and laid eyes on Karkat for the first time since their fight. The guy looked _bad._ As in, _slipped into a coma_ bad. He was just _lying_ there, entire body lax against the crisp sheets, hair flung out like a messy halo around his head, chest moving so slowly that it was almost invisible to the naked eye.

"Oh no…" John whispered, expression stricken. "It's really bad, isn't it?"

Sollux gave a harsh nod. "Yeah. It'th real fucking bad."

"Oh no," John repeated in that same broken whisper. He moved over to Karkat's side as if in a trance and dropped into one of the chairs that had been placed at his bedside. "Karkat…"

There was no response as Dave started to drift forward, footsteps unusually loud as he reached out and brushed his fingers through the troll's hair. _God…I'm so sorry, Karkat. I'm sorry, and you'd better wake up so I can tell you as much._

Sollux's harsh voice broke the thin silence. "Tho, you're the one that cauthed all thith, huh?"

Dave's head snapped up, anger swelling in his chest for just a moment until he realized that _yes,_ this was his fault. He was the one that had forced Karkat to go chasing after him through town, which had then led to the disaster with the prospitarian, which had then led to _this._ "Yeah," he ground out, "it's my fucking fault. All of it. So if you think you can make me feel any worse than I already do, then shoot."

Sollux sneered. "You can't pothibly feel bad enough."

"Yeah? Well then _make_ me feel worse, because I fucking deserve it!"

John was back on his feet in a heartbeat. "Stop, you two! This isn't about who did what, or who caused which events to happen! This is about the fact that Karkat might not wake up, and we have to find some way to deal with that!"

Dave snorted. "Great. Get the freakshow out of here, then we can start coping."

"I'm one of his quadrantth too, shithead!" Sollux snapped.

He paused. "What?"

"Oh no. We are _not_ talking about this right now!" John swept in between them, one hand extended in either direction. "Both of you are going to stop growling at each other and deal with this in a way that doesn't involve taking each other's heads off!"

Dave paused. Considered. Then, "Okay, fine—but we're finishing this later, got it?"

Sollux just snarled at him.

"Good," John said. "Now just what are we supposed to do about this?"

Sollux snorted, "Fuck if I know. We all love thith guy in differnet wayth, tho our coping techniqueth are all going to be totally different."

John cocked his head to one side. "What are _you_ going to do, then?"

Sollux glared at the floor. "I'm going to go thee if I can hunt down the athhole that did thith to him."

Dave perked up. "Hey, that's not a bad idea. Mind if I tag along?"

"If you think you can keep up."

He bared his teeth. "Try me, you bifurcated fuck."

"No!" John snapped, coming between them for a second time. "You two are _not_ going to end up alone together; you'll kill each other and leave Karkat devoid of _both_ his concupiscent quadrants! Dave, you take the western half of the town, and Sollux can take the east. Sound good?"

Dave frowned, briefly wondering when John had learned so much about the quadrant system. But Sollux was already agreeing, and he didn't want to be left behind, and so he said, "Yeah, sure. I'll make sure there are none of those ghost things hanging around. It'll give me a chance to go talk to Dirk, too. Rub it in his face that Karkat's not guilty."

"Oh, that's right!" John exclaimed. "You guys should warn everyone about the hallucinations being _not actual_ hallucinations, too. Don't expect them to believe you at first, but Rose says she's going to call a meeting in the next day or so to talk to everyone about it. She can convince them."

"Will do," Dave said with a nod that Sollux quickly mirrored. "You think you can handle the killer clown if he comes back?"

"Are you kidding me?" John's eyes flashed, fist grinding into the palm of his opposite hand. Papers were stirred up on the desks around them, flung this way and that violently. "I'd like to see him _try_ to get past me."

"Right." Sollux turned for the door. "Metthage uth if anything happenth, okay?"

John offered them a salute. "You got it."

Dave and Sollux were gone a moment later, storming for their targets with equal vigor.

They had a juggalo to hunt down.


	18. Sollux: Burnout

**Chapter 18:** **Sollux: Burnout**

* * *

Dave spent the next several hours flying around the western side of town in hopes of finding something, _anything,_ that would lead him to one of the spirits of the departed trolls. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't expecting to find much. From the sound of it, they weren't quite to the point of being able to maintain physical bodies for very long yet, and so spotting one of them even for a moment would have been a miracle. But still he tried, because Karkat _needed_ him to try.

He skirted town for the thousandth time, and found nothing. No one was there. _Guess it's time to head off in Dirk and Jake's direction, then. I have to stop and let them know what's going on, anyways._

It only took him a few minutes to reach where his brother and his boyfriend had set up shop. Floating up to the front entrance took even less time, and soon he was knocking on the door. None of the lights in the house were on, he noticed. Strange. He knocked again. He wasn't expecting much success here—maybe a short, stilted conversation about how ridiculous the concept of spirits invading their world was, but that was all. Bland, uninteresting, flat.

That wasn't what he got.

There was the sound of at least five deadbolts sliding out of the way, and then the door was being cracked open and just a singular orange eye was staring at him through a pair of shades that had lost at least one lens.

Dave knew immediately that something was wrong. "Dude, your shades!"

"The fuck do you want?"

"Forget what I want," he said, staring in shock at the half-visible face of his ecto-sibling peeking out from behind the door. "Are you okay? What happened to your shades?"

"I'm fine," Dirk snapped. The second question was ignored. "So _get out."_

He tried to close the door, then, but Dave immediately shoved his foot in the way. "No way, dude, not until you tell me what's really going on!"

Dirk hissed. "Get out of here! You don't want to be here, bro, you really don't!"

"Dirk, let me in. _Now_."

"No! Get away from here!"

"No. Open the door." He pushed, and Dirk pushed back on the other side of the door. "Dirk…"

"Dave, I swear to god—"

"You're letting me in _now."_ He pushed at the door again, _hard_ , and this time it gave effortlessly. "Dirk—!"

And then he saw him, and his blood ran cold.

Dirk…something had _happened_ to him. His shades really were missing a lens, and the one that remained was cracked and chipped beyond repair. A set of three scratches ran up from his lower arm and vanished into his tank top, dried blood crusted around them. There was a mark on his cheek that had obviously been left behind by a fist. More dried blood clung to the flesh beneath his nose, and even more crusted around a set of slashes on his thighs. In short, he looked like he'd been through a blender.

"Dirk…" he breathed. "What happened?"

The other Strider's single visible eye was wide as he reached out, sealing his palms to Dave's chest and trying to push him back outside. "Get the fuck out of here while you still can!"

"What? What do you _mean?"_

Dirk hissed, eyes flitting around and locking onto various shadows as if they were preparing to attack him. "They won't let us leave. But they might not have noticed you yet, so you still have a chance to _get out!"_

"Who are _they_ , Dirk?" But he had a dark, sinking feeling that he already knew.

"Fuck if I know! They're some weird apparition things, coming and going whenever the fuck they please!"

"Are they trolls?' Dave pressed. "Do they have horns?"

"Well, yeah—but why does that matter?"

He sucked in a harsh breath. "Dirk, how long have you been seeing these things?"

"Started seeing them a few days ago," was the short response, "but they didn't start attacking us until yesterday. We tried to leave and go for help, tried to message someone and let them know what was going on, but every time we try something _happens,_ and we just end up fighting again."

"You said _we._ Where's Jake?"

Dirk nodded to the staircase. "In our room. He's hurt pretty bad, but he's not down yet. He's trying to rest right now."

"Let's go get him," Dave said grimly. "We're getting out of here _right now."_

"They won't let us leave," Dirk insisted. "They'll attack us, and they're _strong._ I can barely hold them off."

"Well I'm here now, and I've dealt with these things before."

Dirk stared, visibly rattled. "You have?"

"Yeah, dude. That's actually why I was here, so I could tell you about them and what they've been doing for these past few months, but…" He winced. "Looks like they got to you first."

The other Strider just shook his head, bewildered. "Tell me about it later, dude. I'm more worried about getting out of here." He started up the stairs. "Follow me."

He did. Dave followed his relative as he wound up the staircase, ducking into what had to be the master bedroom. And then…

 _Ouch…that looks painful._

"Jake," Dirk said softly, moving to the side of his downed boyfriend. He was sprawled across the bed, though he pushed himself half-up when he heard them come in. "Did anything happen?"

"Oh, hello!" he chirped painfully. "No, it's been quite quiet! Also quite painful, but you can't have everything!" He tried to laugh, but it was shaky.

Dave made his way to Jake's side. From this angle he could see his wounds better, and although they obviously weren't life threatening, they looked like a bitch. Something had taken their claws to his stomach with horrifying fervor, digging into his skin and ripping clean from one side to the other. Blood still glistened on his skin—the wound must have been relatively fresh. Other than that, his injuries matched Dirk's in intensity. Slashed up face, black eye, split lip, miscellaneous cuts down his arms and legs. Something had really laid into him.

"Feeling light headed?" Dirk asked. "You've lost quite a bit of blood."

Jake smiled. "I'm a little fuzzy in the noggin, but it's nothing I can't handle!" His gaze swung to Dave, and he said, "Hello there, old chap! Are you here to sweep us away to safety?"

He swallowed back his disgust at seeing the wound slashed across his stomach. "Yeah, man, I'm all ready to be your prince charming."

"Fantastic! So you believe us about the apparitions, then?"

"Yeah, I—you know what? I'll just explain later. For now, we're going to get out of this horrible place and bring you to the lab. You can both have your injuries treated, and then we can talk about the things that attacked you."

"They're going to try to stop us from leaving," Dirk reminded him. "You'd better be ready to fight."

He nodded. "Don't worry, dude, I have your back. Just grab your boyfriend and I'll swing my sword around at anything that gets too close."

Dirk offered him a thankful but begrudging look. "Thanks, but why are you helping us? I haven't been the best to you or your boyfriend."

"You're still my kind-of-brother," Dave pointed out. "I hate what you did to Karkat, and you're going to hear all aboutwhy you're wrong, but there's no time for that right now. Now grab Jake and let's get out of here."

Dirk didn't hesitate after that. He reached down and scooped his boyfriend up, winced as the movement tugged at his own injuries, and looked to Dave for guidance. "Lead the way."

He did.

The instant they left the bedroom, Dave heard a low, threatening growl start up from somewhere to his right. He turned just in time to catch a set of claws against his katana—but when he lurched forward in an attempt to attack, the troll was already gone.

"She's the one that slashed Jake across the stomach," Dirk growled.

"She'll pay for it," Dave assured him, "but not now. Come on, let's keep moving."

As they kept going, more and more voices started to build around them. But there wasn't another physical attack until they reached the living room, the door only a short distance away, and something _roared._

"Run!" Dave yelled, pushing Dirk and Jake in the direction of the door. They obeyed, and Dave dove to one side as a club came crashing down where his head had been moments prior.

"Leaving so soon, motherfucker?"

It was the clown troll. He _knew_ that voice. He _knew_ it. This was the person that had put Karkat in a coma.

"That's no motherfucking fun! Why don't you be all up and staying to play with us?"

He whirled around, sword held high as another club smashed down at him. And fuck, Gamzee was _strong._ He couldn't block the blow with his sword entirely, only angle it into the ground and jump back as splinters flew up into the air around him.

"How rude!" another voice gasped. "Get back here right meow, you two!"

Jake yelped, then there was the sound of claws screeching against metal as Dirk threw the troll Dave recognized as Nepeta to one side.

"Don't fight her!" Dave cried. "Get out!"

Dirk growled, "Easier said than done!" But still he kicked Nepeta firmly away from him and turned, grabbing Jake again and sprinting for the door, only to be caught off guard by a trident swiping his way as Feferi attempted to gut him.

 _Shit, are all of them here?_ Dave kicked Gamzee's club (bowling pin? Was that a bowling pin?) and swiped at his face, knocking him back just long enough to turn and hook Feferi around the ankle with his blade and pull her away.

Dirk lurched to his feet the instant he was free of Feferi's trident. This time when he reached for the door there was no one there to stop him. He threw the thing open and hauled Jake outside, vanishing out into the open air a moment later.

"Dave! Get out of there!"

He immediately moved to follow his brother's advice, but Gamzee was back on his feet again. The troll flung himself at him with a roar, club screeching through the air in an attempt to brain him—but Dave was faster than he was, and all it took was a burst of speed to whirl around the deadly weapon and return fire with a solid slash to the shoulder. He half expected his sword to just slice cleanly into the ground, Gamzee disappearing into smoke the instant it got close. But to his amazement, that wasn't what happened.

Instead, he _made contact._ He made contact, and Gamzee roared as indigo blood splattered to the floor. It wasn't a deep cut, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was _something_. It proved that they could be harmed.

"That motherfucking _hurt!"_ Gamzee snarled. "You'll pay for that!"

An spray of indigo met the open air as the clown troll tried again. Dave wasn't as afraid this time, though, and he caught the blow and slid it cleanly into he ground.

 _Something doesn't feel right._

Gamzee lashed out again. Dave deflected the blow.

 _Why aren't the others attacking me? Why is it just Gamzee?_

He threw a glance out to the front yard, suspecting that the other two trolls were going after Dirk and Jake. But nothing was there, and his attention was drawn back to Gamzee as a whirlwind of mismatched juggling clubs tried to smash his head in.

 _If they ganged up on me, I'd be dead. But…it's just Gamzee. Why is it just Gamzee? Why aren't they just taking me down and moving on to Dirk and Jake?_

Gamzee roared. Swung again.

 _It's too easy._

And then his eyes went wide as he realized just _why_ things were too easy.

 _A distraction. This is a distraction._

Gamzee chuckled. "Finally figure it out, motherfucker?"

He bared his teeth. "Just what are you trying to distract me from?"

"Nothing much. Just trying to take out that psionic before he can up and do something he regrets. He's the biggest motherfucking threat to our success there is, you know? Gotta take him down."

 _Sollux._

"Should be done by now, though," Gamzee went on. "Guess it can't hurt to let you go. See you at the dark carnival, motherfucker."

Then he was gone, phasing into empty air, and Dave was left alone in the house.

 _Shit, shit, shit! Sollux…I have to warn him!_

\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering twinArmageddons [TA] -

TG: red alert, dude, red alert!

TG: i don't know if you can see this, but if you can then you need to contact me right now

TG: gamzee was here with nepeta and feferi, but it looks like they were just trying to distract us while someone else went after you

TG: ...

TG: sollux?

TG: are you there?

TG: really not a good time to not notice your computer going off!

TG: you'd better not be fucking dead!

TG: ...

TG: fuck!

\- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering twinArmageddons [TA] -

Dave darted out of the house and into the front yard, where Dirk was attempting to stop Jake's stomach from gushing out any more blood than it already had. "You guys need to get to the lab, _now."_

Dirk looked up. "What if we're attacked again? Do you really think we can hold them off on our own?"

"You won't need to," he said. "They're not going to attack you; they're going to go after Sollux."

"Sollux? Who the fuck is—?"

"Doesn't matter, just get to the lab!" Dave heard them protest, but he was already shooting up into the air and tearing off for the eastern part of town. He had no clue where Sollux would have been when he was attacked, but he had to get there _now._

Rather, he had to get there before Sollux was torn apart.

†††

Sollux hissed in annoyance as he circled the forest beside the village for the hundredth time to no avail. There really wasn't anyone to warn on the eastern half of town, seeing as Jade, Jane, and Roxy were already at the lab, and Roxy had messaged Callie earlier that day and asked her to come there so she wouldn't be alone. That left the entire eastern half barren and devoid of life. Even the prospitarians and dersites were absent, most likely sensing the impending danger and holing up in their homes. They were safe for now, he knew—the souls of the deceased trolls were interested in larger prey now.

He landed in front of a hive that was set out beside a decently large plane of flat ground. He was tired of flying, and if he was going to move on foot then he wanted to be able to see for a long ways around him. Not that it would do him any good—he knew from experience that the souls could appear and disappear in a split second, though it didn't appear to be on a whim. It seemed like the souls could only maintain physical form for a short time before fading away to regain strength, though he supposed that would change soon enough. From the sound of it, they were gaining power. Soon they wouldn't have to return to their intangible forms. Soon, their blood pushers would beat anew. And that meant that soon, they could be killed.

Sollux took a few steps forward. His shoes crunched the dried grass as he moved, the sound cutting eerily through the silence. _Something's wrong here…what's this feeling?_

Something was buzzing in the air, he thought. A dull crackle of energy that singed the inside of his nose and filled his lungs with the stench of smoke. He _knew_ this smell. Why did he know it?

The pressure intensified. Something was _wrong._

He took a few more steps forward, ears pricked. The fine hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to stand on end as the air became more and more charged. The feeling was so familiar…

"Heya, Sol. Long time no sea."

He screeched as he was suddenly blasted clean off his feet, the world around him erupting into a chaotic jumble of white noise and burning flesh and crackling earth. Sollux choked on a lungful of smoke, hissing as he realized that he'd been clipped in the side by a beam of something he now recognized as _plasma_.

 _Fuck, ED, now is not the time!_

"You're lookin' a bit off your game there. Shore you can handle me?"

He jolted to his feet, staggering just slightly as he coughed out the smoke in his lungs. The grass around him was smoldering, set alight by Eridan's gun and choking him with thick layers of airborne soot. He lashed out blindly with his psionics, firing off a shock wave that pulsed out around him, putting out the smoldering grass and sweeping the smoke away.

"Aww, now why'd you go and do that? You looked so nice, chokin' on smoke like you were aboat to die."

Sollux whirled around, and there he was. _Eridan Ampora. Fucking fantastic._

"What's wrong, Sol?" The seadweller stalked closer, Ahab's Crosshairs tucked under one arm. His expression was nothing short of murderous. "Surprised to sea me?"

He squared his shoulders to Eridan. His psionics were already starting to crackle, matching the burn of plasma in the open air and sizzling the ground beneath his feet. "Not particularly," he snarled. "I wath wondering when you would try to kill me again. Ready to get your ath kicked, are you?"

Eridan growled then, low and deep, and only a psionic shield over his ears stopped him from dropping to the ground then and there.

"Up to your old trickth, I thee. Thtill too much of a coward to fight me without that pathetic growl of yourth."

"At least I ain't cheatin' by puttin' a shield over my ears!" Eridan spat. "Now are we gonna do this or not?"

"If you want to die, then by all meanth."

Eridan bared his teeth. "You'll be the only one dyin', Sol."

Then he lunged, Sollux lashed out with his psionics, and the two met for the first time in sweeps.

Sollux got the first hit, as he always did. Normally he got _every_ hit, battering Eridan with his psionics and beating him into the ground without ever even trying. But this time was different. He could feel it the instant he smashed a psionic fist into Eridan's stomach and he didn't so much as gasp. He was _stronger._

"Surprised, Sol?" Eridan purred, firing off a blast of plasma so strong that it was _almost_ too much to dodge. "I've had a long time to prepare for this fight while you've been driftin' along lookin' for Vris."

Sollux didn't respond. He was too busy grabbing Eridan by the ankle and hauling him up into the air with his powers, whipping him towards the hive that sat only a few dozen feet away from their fight. Eridan, though, hadn't forgotten how to fight him. He angled his gun towards his ankle, fired once, and then he was free.

 _Shit!_ Ahab's Crosshairs had always been the closest match for his psionics, the plasma actually managing to affect the brightly colored energy he exuded from his eyes.

Eridan landed back on his feet with a dull thud, and then there was another blast of plasma headed his way. His psionics strained to deflect it—he was down one eye, and hadn't used his powers much since he'd started looking for Vriska. He was out of practice.

Eridan seemed to realize as much. "You're easy prey right now, Sol," he sneered. "I bet I could beat you without the crosshairs."

"Prove it, shithead!" Sollux took hold of the air around Eridan and _squeezed,_ trying to turn his entire body into pulp with the help of a psionic shell.

He just smirked. "Nice try, but I'm not fallin' for that one." He fired again, and the shell shattered into nothing. Then again, and again, and yet again, and Sollux was zipping through the air to avoid the blasts of pure energy that could easily have cut straight through him.

 _This is bad. He's so strong…when did he get so strong?_

Eridan's smirk widened until it was the only thing he could see, stretching across his face in an endless sprawl. "You can't even _try_ to stand up to me anymore." He was growing closer now. He shot again, and this time Sollux hissed as his psionics failed him and the side of one foot was caught in the blast.

"Fuck off, ED!" But that didn't stop his gasp of pain as his eye began to burn from the strain of his psionics. Normally it would have taken much longer for him to begin to feel the familiar ache—but Eridan was strong, and Sollux was out of practice, and everything just felt _wrong._ It didn't help that Eridan was _still_ shooting, over and over and over, and Sollux was fighting so hard to dodge and deflect that he didn't have any time left to attack. "Fuck!"

Eridan just grinned. But his eyes weren't locked onto him, they were locked onto someone _behind_ him—and by the time Sollux realized what that meant, he was screeching as something sank deep into the back of his shoulder blade. The pain was white hot, _wrenching,_ and before he could stop himself he was plummeting back to earth and striking the ground.

"Atta boy, Tav! Take that lowblood scum down!"

 _Tavros?_ He gasped for breath, thanking every higher being he knew of that he hadn't landed on his back. The lance was still sticking out of his shoulder, and it would have torn his arm clean off if he'd fallen wrong. He took hold of the lance with his psionics and wrenched it out with a rasping cry. Blood was pulsing from the wound, and he couldn't spare the energy to give it a psionic patch while dealing with Eridan, let alone with Tavros to boot.

A metallic clanging sound let him know that Tavros was charging at him. "TV!" he hissed in horror, using everything he had to launch the bloodied lance right at the approaching troll. But Tavros just caught it, whirling it around so that the point was aimed at his chest, and continued his advance. "Fuck! TV, thtop!" But he didn't, and the next moment he was forced to launch himself to one side as Tavros stabbed at him and Eridan fired off another blast at the same time.

 _Get rid of TV first,_ he hissed silently. And so he did, reaching out with his psionics and ripping and tearing at the gears and metallic parts that compensated for Tavros's lack of legs. The troll went down with a soundless thud, mechanical legs wrecked. Sollux couldn't help but feel guilty—but then he remembered that Equius was around too, and that Tavros would probably be good as new once the blueblood got his hands on him.

"Now that was just uncalled for," Eridan sneered.

Sollux didn't bother with a verbal response. Instead he lashed out again, snaking dozens of tendrils of power in Eridan's direction and biting at his arms, his legs, his stomach, everything he could reach. His eye was really burning now, warning him that he was using too much power too quickly. _Need to slow down…but if I slow down he'll have me!_

Eridan yelped as one of the psionic tendrils snaked its way past his gun and lashed a deep gouge in his cheek. "You fuckin' dirtblood!" he roared, holding a hand up to his face to stem the flow of violet blood.

 _There we go…that's more like it._ Eridan had gone blind with rage, firing every which way, and Sollux knew that he'd turned the tides. He reached out and took hold of the highblood's gun and _yanked._ Eridan didn't let go of his weapon—he wasn't that disoriented—but he did lurch forward, off balance and surprised, as Sollux yanked him flat into the ground and began raining blows down against his back.

Eridan screeched as psionics tore straight past his cape and into his flesh. "Eq! Grab him!"

He had about half a second to process what that sentence meant before there were impossibly strong arms closing around him and pulling him back, not even flinching when he turned his psionics on them. _EQ! Oh no, this is bad—_

His thoughts were overtaken by a panicked storm of psionics as Eridan clawed his way to his feet and raised his gun again, and Sollux _still couldn't break free._

"Hold him," Eridan snarled, dabbing blood out of his eye as he brought Ahab's Crosshairs up to point directly between the psionic's eyes. "Now, how aboat we do this all nice and civil? I'm going to shoot you in the face, and you're going to be reel polite and die. How does that sound?"

Sollux snapped like a wild animal, teeth bared, eye wide, psionics lashing out in all directions without ever actually managing to grab onto anything. His pan was hot and fuzzy and disjointed, and he felt as if he were scrabbling at the earth in an attempt to gain purchase with no hope of ever keeping his grip. Thrashing back against Equius did him no good, and clawing desperately with psionic fingers only made Eridan growl in frustration.

"Hold still, pissblood scum!"

That just made him fight harder. He spewed out psionic attacks with all his strength and tried with all his might to wrap his claws around every molecule of Eridan's body, to rip out his tongue and squeeze his blood pusher until it popped and tear his fins right off the sides of his head, but there was just _nothing._ Equius was squeezing the breath out of him, and the lack of oxygen was making it hard to concentrate on getting his fingertips hooked into Eridan's mind.

"Sorry, Sol. It's nothin' personal." Then he paused. "Actually…"

There was more, but Sollux didn't hear it because Eridan had just pulled the trigger, and there was a beam of plasma streaking towards his face, and before he could think he was retaliating and shooting a singular red laser from his singular working eye to meet Eridan's attack head on. It was a mistake, and he realized it the moment he did it, but even by then it was too late and then he was _screaming_ , the pain literally blinding in its intensity as he felt the sharp, agonizing, and horribly familiar sensation of psionic burnout.

Eridan stopped firing. He thought he heard him laugh. "Drop him, Eq. He's good as dead now."

"I thought you were planning to kill him," was the curious response. "Why let him live now?"

"It'll be more painful to let him watch his friends die knowin' that he doesn't have a chance of helpin' 'em," Eridan sneered. Or at least, it _sounded_ like he was sneering. "Think about it, Eq—think how much it'll hurt knowin' that I'm krillin' his kismesis and he can't lift a finger to help."

Sollux felt a jolt of alarm thrill through him. _Not letting you get to KK…_

"You're useless," Eridan rumbled. "Remember that, Sol."

Equius was dropping him, then, and he nearly screeched again as his face slammed into the rocky earth. _Fuck, there go my teeth. Fucking great._ He struggled to lift his head, to lash out with psionics that were no longer there, but it was useless. Eridan, Equius, and Tavros were gone, leaving him bloodied and fully blind on the ground.

His husktop beeped from his sylladex. _Great timing. Real fucking great._

He tried to lift a hand to retrieve his husktop, but it was useless. His limbs were sluggish, his pan felt like mush, and he wouldn't be able to read the messages even if he _did_ manage to get the device out.

All he could do was wait, slipping further and further towards unconsciousness with ever moment.

†††

Dave didn't have to search for long before he found Sollux. It was rather obvious where he was, seeing as the land all around him was charred and still smoldering with fresh flame. Whatever had gone down here, it hadn't been good.

"Sollux!" he called out, dropping out of the air to kneel beside the body of the troll. "Sollux, man, can you hear me?" He grabbed onto his shoulder, then winced when his hand came away slick with mustard-yellow blood. But still he forced himself to grab him and turn him on his back, and _oh dear god what happened to him?_

Dave sucked in a pained breath as he saw that Sollux's one good eye was just _gone,_ blood seeping from the empty eye socket. More than that, his teeth were pretty much knocked entirely in. And what were those bruises around his arms, and the burns on his side and ankle?

"Sol!" he tried again, shaking him. "Come on, wake up!" But it was no use. Sollux just laid there, chest moving in shallow little bursts. He was completely unconscious, no doubt about it.

"Okay, dude," he decided, "I'm going to pick you up and get you back to the lab." He hauled Sollux up, wincing as cooling blood soaked into his shirt. _Gross…_ Then he paused, noticing that just a few feet away, there was a splatter of violet liquid. It was blood, he recognized—and no living troll had _that_ color blood. He quickly captchalogued a few of the bloodied rocks. Rose would want to look at them later, he had a feeling.

Then he lifted off and rushed Sollux back to the lab.

†††

"Oh goodness!" Kanaya gasped, eyes widening as Dave burst into the lab with Sollux draped over his shoulder. "Oh my, this is—Rose! Rose, in here, please!"

Dave set Sollux's body down with a heavy thud on the nearest cot. Dirk and Jake were there, he noticed both sleeping like rocks. _I guess the gang's all here, then. Every single one of us is in this lab at this very moment._

Kanaya helped Dave lay Sollux out. Then she dashed off to grab the bag of medical supplies, snapping damp towels out of her sylladex and starting to clean the blood off of Sollux. "What happened?" she demanded as Rose rushed into the room with a similar expression of horror.

"I wasn't there," Dave said, stepping back to let the girls do their thing. "But if I had to guess, I'd say that some of the spirits ganged up on him. I ran into Gamzee at Dirk's house, and he said that he was trying to get rid of 'the psionic' because he was their biggest threat. I went to find Sollux, but it was too late by the time I got there. No one was around, but I did manage to find this." He pulled the bloodied rocks out of his sylladex and set them on the countertop.

Kanaya's features twisted the instant she saw them. "Eridan."

"Eridan?" Rose echoed. "The highblood who murdered Feferi and almost did the same to you?"

She stared darkly at the ground. "Yes. The very same. He's always hated Sollux, so if the souls wanted him removed from action, he's the one they'd go to."

"But Eridan is a long-range fighter, correct?" Rose questioned. Her fingertips grazed the harsh bruises running around Sollux's arms and torso. "How could he have gotten these, or that strange puncture wound in his back?"

"More than one spirit, perhaps? If I had to guess, I'd say that the bruises could have been caused by Equius. And that wound on his back looks like it was caused by a lance, which suggests Tavros was involved as well."

"Right." Rose pulled out her phone and fired off a message. "Jane's already healed Dirk and Jake today, so she's weaker than normal, but she can probably help us here. Perhaps his eye can be repaired."

Kanaya shook her head. "It won't work. This looks like psionic burnout, and there's no fix for that."

"Psionic burnout?" Dave echoed. "What does that mean?"

Kanaya fixed him with a pained gaze. "It means that his powers are gone."

His blood ran cold. "As in, gone for good? Because we need everyone we can to win this fight, and if he can't help, then—!"

"For good," Kanaya confirmed. "Eridan did his job well, as unfortunate as it is. Sollux will be of no use to us now."

"God…" Dave leaned hard against the nearest wall, stomach flipping up and down. "How the fuck are we supposed to beat these guys? They're not even at full strength yet, and they've already smashed Dirk and Jake into the ground, put Karkat in a coma, and taken Sollux's powers away."

There was an eerie silence. Then, "I don't know," Kanaya whispered. "We just have to try."

Rose gave a silent nod. "What else can we do? If we don't act, we die. The souls have proven that much."

"Won't be souls for long," Dave pointed out. "They're pretty damn close to resurrecting, Rose."

She bit her lip. "We need a strategy."

"It had better be damn good, otherwise we're done."

"Dave, that's _enough_." Kanaya came between them, shooting him a firm glance. "We're all trying our best, so there's no need to snap at each other."

 _Shit…was I snapping at her?_ "I'm sorry," he amended. "I'm just…"

Rose's expression softened. "I know," she whispered. "I know. Why don't you go see Karkat? John should be with him now. Let him know what happened."

He knew she was right—that would be best. "Yeah, okay. I'll see you soon, Rose."

She just nodded, already turning back to care for Sollux.

†††

It didn't take long to find Karkat's cot.

"Sollux is out of action for good," Dave said as he entered the room. John was just where he'd left him, sitting at Karkat's bedside and running his hands through the troll's hair. He'd been murmuring softly to him when he'd come in, and Dave wondered vaguely if he'd been talking to him since he'd left.

John lifted his head, eyes wide. "Out of action? Is he okay?"

"Well, _okay_ is a relative term," he sighed. "The crazy fish troll blinded him and knocked his teeth in, which apparently means he's lost his powers."

"No…" John's fingers tightened in Karkat's hair. "That means we don't have him for the fight against the souls!"

"Yep, looks that way." Dave walked over and lowered himself into one of the two free chairs at Karkat's bedside. "And you heard about Dirk and Jake, right? It looks like we're going to be severely understaffed for the fight."

John just shuddered. "God…I can't imagine what's going to happen."

He didn't want to think about it. He really didn't. "So," he said in an attempt to change the subject, "how's Karkat doing?"

"The same as when you left." John went back to stroking along Karkat's hair, fingers brushing along the ridges of his horns. "There's no sign that he's any closer to waking up, but it's only been a day. We have to give him time."

He wasn't an idiot. He heard how badly John's voice was shaking.

"I just…" John tried to laugh, but it broke off into a dry choking noise. "I just hope that Karkat has something to wake up _to._ Sollux was nearly taken out, and if we go into this battle before he wakes up, then…what if we don't come back?"

"Hey. _Hey."_ Dave ruffled John's hair in the coolest possible way. "No matter what happens, we've got each other's backs. We're on the same team, right? We'll be fighting together."

John seemed to relax just slightly at that, though he still looked uncertain. "Yeah, I…I guess you're right. I just hope it's enough."

"Don't worry, dude. It will."

 _It has to be._


	19. Rose: Strategize

**Chapter 19:** **Rose: Strategize**

* * *

Karkat yawned, stretching his arms above his head as he popped the lid of his recuperacoon open and began to shake off the slime.

 _Looks like a beautiful night,_ he thought, peering out the window as he grabbed for a towel and began to wipe at the viscous green fluid still attempting to stick to his skin. Casting the towel aside once he was satisfied with the amount of slime he'd raked off, he made his way into the ablution chamber and turned on the trap. His hair was still thick and sticky with slime, and he refused to go anywhere looking like he'd been drowned in the stuff.

His eyes flickered momentarily toward the window in his respiteblock as he closed the door to the ablution block and stepped beneath the stream of water. _It really is beautiful. Perfect for a walk or some other sappy bullshit. I wonder if Terezi's free tonight._

That was when he heard a crash from downstairs, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. For just a moment he felt a prickle of fear as he thought that maybe someone had broken into his hive—but then he remembered the previous night, remembered Eridan, and that was enough to make him groan in embarrassment. It was also enough to make sure he was out of the ablution trap in record time, hair still dripping as he pulled on a pair of black pants and a long-sleeved red shirt. He did _not_ want Eridan finding him naked again. Not after the last time.

"Kar?"

Speak of the devil.

"Kar, I'm pretty sure I knocked over one of those weird vase things, but I swear I can pay to replace it!"

He groaned again. "I swear to gog, you're fucking useless."

"Yeah? We'll you're no better, you lowblood sc—"

Karkat raised a brow.

Eridan cleared his throat awkwardly. "Right, sorry. But you're still a coddamn scum sucker!"

"We eliminated the hemospectrum for a reason _,_ Eridan. Don't go around making me wish we'd gotten rid of _you,_ too."

Eridan bared his shark-like teeth in a vicious sneer. "Like you could take me down if you tried. One blast with Ahab's Crosshairs and you'd be—hey!"

Karkat swept his legs out from under him with one clean motion, and the next moment he was jabbing the point of a sickle into his throat. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Fuck! Get off me, Kar!"

"Be nicer," he snapped, though it was really the exact opposite of what he wanted.

Eridan knew it. He glared up at him, eyes flashing, and bit out, "What kind of a fuckin' kismesis would I be if I just let you walk all over me?"

"A better one. Now get the fuck out, I've got shit to do today!"

Eridan squirmed to his feet with a huff. "Got a hot date planned with Ter today? Or are you goin' over to Gam's house for a jam?"

"That's none of your fucking business!"

"Ter, then. Got it."

He growled. "Get _out,_ Eridan!"

"I'm goin', I'm goin'! Hold your hoofbeasts!"

Karkat chased him out with a swipe of his claws, snapping irritably when Eridan had the nerve to laugh as he charged down the stairs.

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

 _ **password?**_

* * *

The next morning, Dave joined with everyone in the main room of the lab for a meeting. They'd all agreed that they should convene and share information, then come up with a plan of attack for dealing with the resurrecting trolls. Hopefully by the time their meeting disbanded, they would know exactly how they were going to play things.

Rose cleared her throat, and the chattering died down. "So," she said brusquely. "We're all here. Shall we have that meeting we've been discussing?"

She was met with silent nods of agreement. It looked like it was time to begin.

"Right," she said. She pointed to the large whiteboard Kanaya had helped her set up, marker in hand. "So, before we begin planning battle strategies, we should go over some basic information. Namely, we need to reiterate the fact that the souls of the deceased trolls are attacking us, and that _they_ were the ones responsible for the series of murders, not Karkat. Is that understood?"

Unsurprisingly, Dirk was the one that spoke up. He looked pretty good, Jane having healed his wounds the day before. "Karkat _did_ kill the last prospitarian, actually, even if was just caused by a hallucination that wasn't _really_ a hallucination. Let's not glaze over that."

Dave opened his mouth to snap at him, but Rose beat him to it. "Dirk. Are you really going to continue to antagonize Karkat, even after all this?"

"No, no!" Dirk raised his hands defensively. "Look, I was wrong him—and if he wakes up, I'll tell him as much. I only brought that up because if it can happen to Karkat, it can happen to us—and we need to _remember_ that before we go around swinging at souls."

It was probably the closest he was going to get to an apology, and even though Dirk was looking at Rose, Dave knew that it was really aimed at _him_. His suspicions were only confirmed when Dirk shot him a subtle glance.

 _You're forgiven, dude._ Dave nodded minutely.

Dirk's lips quirked just slightly upwards, as if to say, _message received. Thanks, bro._

"You have a point," Rose said. "But can we all agree that Karkat shouldn't be held responsible for that particular murder?"

There were murmurs of agreement all around.

"Good. And can we also agree that these souls are real, and that we truly are dealing with the spirits of the deceased trolls?"

More murmurs of agreement. At this point, the only people who hadn't seen the souls in person were Jade, Jane, Roxy, and Callie, and of those four, three had seen the carnage caused by them firsthand. There was no way any of them could doubt this anymore.

Rose nodded. "Also good. Then we can move onto strategy, can we not?" She uncapped the marker and started writing on the whiteboard. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Kanaya, Sollux, but I believe that there are six souls running rampant currently. In order of blood color, we have Feferi, Eridan, Gamzee, Equius, Nepeta, and Tavros." She looked up for confirmation.

"Yes," Kanaya said, "that's correct."

"Good. Now, based on what we've observed, it's safe to say that the day is soon approaching when all of the souls will no longer be souls, but will be able to maintain permanent physical bodies. They will, in effect, be brought back to life. Once that happens, we will need to have a plan to take them down before they can do the same to us."

"Why are they even attacking us, anyways?" Dirk questioned. "I thought these guys were friends of the other trolls."

"They are," Sollux said. He was talking to a wall instead of Dirk, though, and Kanaya turned him gently so he was facing the right direction. "We think that as a result being passed through a portal in the furthest reaches of paradox space, something went wrong with their think pans. It wasn't serious at first, but after a while they started to gain power and slowly go insane. Now, months later, all they want is to see us dead, probably as a result of trolls being violent creatures to begin with. All the black hole did was return them to factory settings."

 _He's a lot easier to understand without the lisp,_ Dave realized. But that just made him feel like shit, because Sollux had lost his powers and his eyesight along with the lisp, so it hadn't really been an equal trade.

"So we're saying that they were sucked into that black hole thing and just ended up here?"

Rose dipped her head. "That seems to be the most plausible explanation, yes, based on what Sollux has remembered and what we have observed ourselves."

Dirk just stared for a moment. But then he shrugged, saying, "You know what? After being attacked by a bunch of dead trolls, that doesn't sound that weird. Go on."

She did. "We have no idea when the spirits will resurrect entirely, so we need to develop a strategy _now_. We'll plan for Karkat and Sollux being out of action, then we can stencil them in if they're fit to fight by the time the confrontation arrives.

"We'll need to divide our forces to the best of our abilities. We have to take into consideration that the highbloods will be noticeably more difficult to take down, with Feferi being the most difficult and Tavros being the weakest. Therefore we should make sure that our best fighters are assigned to the hardest targets." Her eyes swept the crowd, thoughtful.

"There are many highbloods," Kanaya pointed out. "Four trolls with incredible abilities and two that can still be quite deadly if pressed. Meanwhile, we're direly short-staffed. Sollux was our best shot to take down Eridan without a struggle, and now we've been left without him. Karkat is also out for the time being, and though he's no powerhouse, he could have taken on Tavros and left someone else free for a more difficult fight."

"Yes," Rose murmured, "that is troubling. But the good news is, I think I know how we can take them down." She looked to Jane. "You've never brought any of the deceased trolls back to life, is that correct?"

"No," Jane replied with a frown. "Of course not."

"So you could bring them back if they were to die?"

"Only once, but yes."

Rose nodded thoughtfully. "As I thought. Now, we theorized that if we could beat the souls, we may be able to reset their minds. Sollux's momentary lapse of reason supports this theory."

"Yeah?" Sollux grumbled. "And?"

"And," Rose said, "it seems that killing them will be the perfect way to reset them."

Silence. For just a moment, there was nothing.

Then, "Do really you think that will work?" Roxy piped up. "We just…kill them? And then Jane brings them back to life and everything is fine?"

"I _do_ think it will work," Rose responded. "My theory is that killing them will effectively snap them back to normal—and seeing as Jane hasn't yet had to bring any of them back to life, she can use her powers to get them back on their feet. Once they've been revived, we can recruit them to help us take down the trolls that haven't yet been defeated."

Dave narrowed his eyes. "And what if it doesn't work? What if Jane brings them back to life and then they're just as vicious as ever, and we have to fight them _again?"_

"That shouldn't happen," was the calm reply. "If Jane brings the first felled troll back to life and it turns out they're still violent, we simply won't move to resurrect the others. In addition, those assigned to fight that dead troll will not leave until it has been determined that the troll will not turn violent. This should keep everyone safe. Jane, do you think it's possible?"

She hesitated, looking slightly nervous. "Well…yeah, of course it's possible! I can bring them all back, assuming your plan goes smoothly, and everyone should be fine. It'll be a strain on my powers, though, so we'll have to be really careful."

"Agreed," Rose murmured. "Now, if no one has any complaints, we should start with the pre-battle assignments." She waited, then, but no one protested. "Very well. Jane, Roxy, I want the two of you to do the same thing you did when we were fighting that final battle against Lord English and his associates. The two of you should set up window portals all over the different areas of battle so that Jane can jump between them and heal whoever becomes injured. Aside from the trolls we've already discussed, there are still some of us here that you can bring back to life once, yes?"

Jane nodded. "Yes, there are a few! Of course, those who reached god tier can only die permanently if their deaths are heroic or just, but I can bring people back once even if their deaths qualify as such, so don't worry! John, Dave, Jade, Rose, and Roxy, I can bring all of you back from a heroic or just death one time. Jake and Dirk, I already had to bring you back one time, so you should be really careful about what you do. Callie, Sollux, and Kanaya, you three have to be _really_ careful—and so does Karkat, if he wakes up in time! You guys aren't god tier, so I can only bring you back once before you die for good. And I can't bring Karkat back at all, so he's even worse off!"

"What about the ring?" Callie asked from behind Roxy. "The ring of life is supposed to keep any spirit alive who wears it, right?"

"Yes," Jane said, "but we won't be able to access any of the spirits of those who are killed in battle. The dream bubbles are gone, and who knows where you'll end up after you die?"

Callie flinched back. "Oh…okay, that makes sense!"

Jane nodded. "I believe that's all, then. That's everything I know."

Rose answered with a nod of her own. "That's perfect, Jane—thank you. Now that that's out of the way, we should decide who will be fighting which troll. Callie, I believe you would be perfect to stay here and watch over Sollux and Karkat. Are you okay with that?"

"Oh! Yes, of course—I'll do my best!"

No one misssed the relieved slump of Roxy's shoulders. No doubt Rose was just as eager as she was to keep Callie, someone who wasn't particularly adept at fighting, out of the action.

"Now," Rose went on, "Tavros is next. Jake, I believe you'd do well with him."

"Me?" Jake squeaked. "Are you sure?"

Dirk punched him lightly in the arm. "That's the easiest assignment, dude. You can take him."

"Oh…well, if you're sure, I'll definitely try!"

Rose smiled gently. "That's all we can ask for. If you need help, I can send someone to you when they finish their own battle." On the whiteboard, she scribbled _Jake_ under where she'd written Tavros's name. "Moving up, we have Nepeta. Dirk, you'll be perfect to take on someone that uses her claws as blades."

Dirk shrugged. "Guess I'm in, then."

"Excellent." She wrote his name. "Equius is going to be a rough one, from what I've heard. Roxy, I'd like you to take him."

"Hang on," Kanaya broke in. "You're only sending one person after Equius? I would advise otherwise; his strength is quite fearsome."

The corners of Rose's lips quirked upwards. "Oh no," she said, "I'm not sending her alone. As it so happens, Terezi should be arriving in a few days. When she does, I'm going to have her help take Equius down."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Dave jolted just slightly, shooting Rose an alarmed glance. "Terezi is coming back? She's coming back and you didn't _say_ anything?"

"Did she find Vriska?" John chimed in. "Is she okay?"

Rose dipped her head. "No. She has given up her search, and is on her way to help Karkat."

 _Wait…what?_ "Help him?"

Rose nodded. "Yes. I originally called her when we believed that Karkat was succumbing to his hallucinations, and she agreed that coming home was more important than searching for someone she now believes to be dead. Obviously Karkat needs help for other reasons now, but I still believe that Terezi may be able to aid him in some way. In addition, she will be vital for this battle. We'll need her."

Dave didn't miss the dreamy expression that crossed John's face at the mention of Vriska. She'd been gone for a long while, and even though she'd blown him off pretty severely a long time ago, he still seemed to like her. _Idiotic, if you ask me._

"Anyway," Rose said, continuing despite the plethora of stunned faces turned her way, "the next target is Gamzee. Obviously he'll have to be taken on by—"

"Us," Dave said, stepping forward. John was at his side without ever having been asked. "We'll take him down."

"Agreed," Rose said with a knowing smile. "You two will be perfect."

Sollux grumbled from the corner, "Give him hell."

Dave nodded. "Don't worry, we'll make sure he's put down like the animal he is."

"I have no doubt that you will," Rose agreed, scribbling their names down. "Now, we have to deal with Eridan. Jade, I'm trusting that to you."

"By myself?" she asked, looking only slightly alarmed. "But I don't have my first guardian powers anymore!"

"You don't need them," was the calm response. "You're a powerful fighter, Jade, and I trust that your control of space will at the veryleast allow you to keep him busy until someone else is able to help you."

She didn't look certain. But still, she agreed, "Okay…if you're really sure!"

Rose was already writing her name. "I'm certain. That leaves Feferi, the highest target. Kanaya and I will be assigned to her." She looked to Kanaya. "Can you handle it?"

The troll nodded, though her expression was grim. "I'll have to."

"Good." Rose swept her gaze across all of them, then, cool and resolute. "Now that the assignments are taken care of, we need to work out a few more details. For one, how are we going to make sure that all of these battles aren't taking place in the same area? We don't want to clump together or things will become chaotic, so ideally we should aim to spread things out. We also need a way of tracking our opponents, telling who is where doing what. In addition, having some kind of auditory communicator on us at all times will be incredibly important. If Kanaya and I are taken out, for example, we'll need to call someone to cover Feferi before she can move to gang up on somebody else. If that happens, we're all dead."

Dirk's head shot up. "I think I can track them," he said.

Rose quirked a brow. "How so?"

"I've been developing thermal scanners," he replied enthusiastically. "I was actually studying the hemospectrum, figuring out blood color versus blood heat and doing a whole bunch of research just for fun. If you're looking to track people, I think I could set up the scanners in a wide radius and hook them up to our phones. The coldest heat signature would be Feferi, the hottest Tavros, and the others would fall in between. It should work!"

 _Clever._ Dave had almost forgot about the thermal scanners, but they could come in handy now.

"And I can help out with the communication issues," Sollux offered. "I can take your phones and figure out a code to alchemize a headset that would connect wirelessly to them. You could wear it during battle to communicate with others if needed."

"Oh, and I don't think that separating our targets will be a problem!" Jade chimed in. "If they all try to attack us at once, I'll just use my powers to warp space around them and move them to different parts of the world! Then we can head out separately and intercept them before they can reunite."

"Yes, that's perfect!" Rose exclaimed. "If we have all those things, we may stand a chance here."

Everyone exchanged excited glances. _They had a chance._

Rose clapped her hands. "Now," she announced, "we should all get moving! Make sure that none of you are ever alone for even a moment, and get to work setting up everything you need to attack. Once we get the scanners running, we'll know immediately when the spirits solidify for good."

Jane floated up into the air. "We can start setting up the teleporters! Roxy, you're with me!"

Roxy gave her a smirking nod. "You got it, boss." Then the two were darting from the room, already talking strategy.

"I'll begin work on the scanners," Dirk said. "Jake, help me set them up." And then the two of _them_ were gone as well.

"And I guess I'll work on the headsets," Sollux shrugged. "KN, will you hang back with me? I need to use your phone to see what I'm dealing with here."

"Oh!" She looked surprised. "If that's what you need, then I'd be happy to stay."

"I'm going back to Karkat," John said. "Dave, want to come with?"

He nodded. Not like he had anything better to do.

The others slowly began to dissipate, off to do their respective tasks. There was much to be done, and they had no clue how long they had to do it.

Hopefully it would be enough.

†††

The instant everyone was gone, Sollux advanced on Kanaya with singular intent.

"This isn't going to work, KN."

Kanaya fidgeted uncomfortably. "I know."

"From what you've told me, it took four of you to beat the Condesce, and Jane's help was the only thing that stopped all of you from dying. Now you're going to face a younger version of that same person with only two people, one of which is _you,_ who will no doubt be rendered significantly weaker the instant FF decides to growl at you."

"I'll manage," Kanaya murmured. "I have to, for Rose."

"You're going to get her killed, KN, jumping in front of a blow to save you. And then FF will kill _you_ , and then she'll move on to the others and pick them off one by one. If they all haven't been killed already, that is. Do you really think ED will find Jade to be an opponent possessing of even a slight challenge? Or that GZ won't slaughter John and Dave in a heartbeat?"

More fidgeting. "They'll pull through. They _have_ to, Sollux! There is no other way!"

She was right. With their current forces, Rose had done the best she could—but there was no way it was going to be enough. "These guys are more powerful than ever before. _TV_ managed to get me on the ground. _TV."_

Kanaya's eyes flickered with helplessness. "What would you have us do differently?"

"Honestly? Nothing. Right now, I think we're just doomed."

"Do you really believe that we have no chance?"

He sucked in a pained breath. "Yeah. I really do."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

Sollux pulled his husktop out of his sylladex. Opened trollian. "We do whatever we can. And for me, that means calling for help from the only person that can give it to us."

†††

After that, three days passed in peace. There were no more encounters, no more sightings, no more voices in the shadows. It was as if the souls were waiting, biding their time until they became fully corporeal. And while they waited, the humans and trolls fought as hard as they could to get everything ready for the inevitable battle.

Jane and Roxy finished setting up the teleporters all across the village and surrounding forest. Within a ten mile radius, Jane could get herself anywhere in mere moments. Hopefully her healing powers wouldn't be spread too thin.

Sollux finished the codes for the wireless communication devices and alchemized as many as they would need. They were tested, and they all connected to the phones flawlessly. When the battle hit, they would be able to communicate instantly at any time, choosing whether to send out a message to everyone or to only contact a few people as not to confuse everyone.

Of all their achievements, though, Dirk's was the most impressive. In a three-day time span he'd managed to cover a ridiculous amount of space in thermal scanners and hook them all up to everyone's phones, as well as a central monitor in the lab. It was impressively extensive, covering every nook and cranny of every conceivable space they'd be fighting in. And what was more impressive was the fact that they could actually _see_ the souls on the monitors.

They were flickering things, there at certain times and gone at others. It was strange to sit there, watching them dot in and out of existence repeatedly. They were never in one place for very long, never tangible for more than an hour at most.

"We can use this to tell when they go completely tangible," Dirk had explained. "Once the dots go stable and start converging on this place, we'll know they're making their move. That will be when the true battle begins."

As the days passed, Dirk even managed to label which dots were which people. After staring at the screens for hours on end, he finally figured out the spectrum of heat signatures and what they meant in terms of blood color. Soon the dots weren't just white splotches on a screen, but they were color-coded and labeled as well. It made figuring out who was who infinitely easier, and it was an amazing system—especially when Dirk went ahead and added the members of their group onto it as well, making sure that they would know where they all were at every moment in time. Hopefully it held up in the heat of battle.

After the preparations were done, things fell into a horrible lull, though. Everyone was just sitting around and waiting to be attacked, and it was the worst feeling in the world. Dave and John spent most of their time at Karkat's side, hoping for some impossible sign that he was going to wake up. But the longer he went without a single sign of movement, the more desperate they became.

"Terezi is coming," John had said more than once. "She can help him."

Dave could only shake his head, hoping that he was right.

Meanwhile, Rose and Kanaya spent all of their time in the main room of the lab, studying Dirk's system of thermal scanners while Jake lounged contentedly in the corner, bugging Sollux about his programing. Rose and Kanaya wanted to know as much about the system as possible, just in case something went wrong and they had to fix it.

On the other side of the lab, Jane, Jade, Roxy, and Callie made themselves comfortable. They didn't do much other than discuss strategy and sit around, resting as much as they could before the final battle.

It would be soon. Everyone could feel it.

And more importantly, everyone was _afraid_ of it, and terrified of the bloodbath that was sure to come.

†††

\- twinArmageddons [TA] started trolling apocalypseArisen [AA] -

TA: aa are you there?

TA: ii don't know why ii'm doiing thii2, but ii ju2t feel liike you can hear me.

TA: ii'm begiinniing two remember liittle biit2 and piiece2 of what ii've been doiing iin the pa2t few month2, and ii thiink that you're a part of that tiime iin a pretty biig way.

TA: 2o am ii riight?

TA: ...

TA: well, anyway

TA: thiing2 aren't lookiing good here, two 2ay the lea2t.

TA: we have a plan two deal wiith the 2oul2 of the decea2ed troll2, but iit'2 not goiing two work. there are two few of u2, and two many of them.

TA: we need help, aa

TA: we need you and we need vk.

TA: 2o...wherever you are, whatever you're doiing

TA: hurry.

TA: becau2e we're all goiing two die iif you don't get here before the fiinal battle hiit2.

TA: 2o, yeah

TA: plea2e

TA: come home.

\- twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling apocalypseArisen [AA] -

†††

Aradia's heart panged as she read Sollux's messages for the hundredth time. _Come home,_ he'd begged, and she wanted nothing more than to jump right into the portal and follow his instructions. But she couldn't, not until she found Vriska. They were completely outmatched back on the new planet, and Vriska _needed_ to be there in order for them to win. So did she, for that matter. They would need everyone they had.

 _Terezi should be there soon,_ she thought. _And the instant I find Vriska, I'll be there with her. That's three more trolls to join the fight, two of whom are magnificent fighters. It will have to be enough._

She darted to the side as a meteor nearly crushed her. She'd been flying in the same direction for what felt like years, and she hadn't been sucked back towards the black hole just yet. That didn't mean she'd run into Vriska, though—she seemed no closer than before as she wandered the endless fields of meteors.

 _Come on, Vriska. You have to be here!_

"Vriska!" she called out, but her voice didn't travel far. "Vriska, can you hear me?"

As usual, there was no response.

"Vriska! Where _are_ you?"

†††

"Hey, Karkat? Is something wrong?"

"Hmm?" Karkat looked over at his matesprit, frowning lightly. "No, of course not. Did I look troubled?"

Terezi rolled her eyes. "Any more than usual? No. But still, we've been out of the game for sweeps, and you've never lost that look…like you've left something behind that you can't forget."

"What kind of a thing is that to say?" He pulled back just slightly from where he had his arm slung around Terezi's shoulders. The two of them were walking to the theater to see the latest movie that was playing there, having planned a casual date for the afternoon. After the debacle with Eridan earlier that night, he could fucking _use_ it, too. "I'm happier than I've ever been, Terezi. We have our new world, the hemospectrum has been abolished, trolls aren't just culling each other in the streets anymore, there are no more drones, Feferi has instituted a democracy…"

"You've stopped cussing as much," she pointed out with a smirk.

"Yeah, that too. It's so _peaceful_ here now. I can walk down the street with Eridan and no one gives me weird looks. Hell, I can wear my symbol in my _actual_ blood color and no one gives a fuck! I never imagined that would happen, let alone that I would live this long!" He stared up at the sky, where the moons shone down at them happily. "I have a beautiful matesprit, a reliable kismesis, and a loving moirail. What more could I ask for?"

Terezi shrugged. "Nothing, I suppose. Sounds like you've really done well for yourself, Karkat."

He nodded. "The best."

They walked in silence for a while. Karkat squeezed at Terezi's shoulder thoughtlessly as they moved, looking back on everything that had happened since they'd left the game. It had been a good, peaceful transition. They'd beat the Black King, created their new universe, and built it the way they'd wanted it—and the way they'd wanted it had been without the hemospectrum and without the violence. Eridan and Equius had protested a bit at first, but when both Feferi and Nepeta had urged the two to leave it behind, they'd given up their advantages as highbloods and slipped back into Alternian society without a hitch. Blood color meant nothing now, and the first time Karkat scraped himself in public he'd nearly started blubbering over the fact that the nearby trolls had just shrugged, and one had even offered him a bandaid. He'd gone to Gamzee about the incident, drawn to him by something he didn't quite understand, and the two of them had fallen into moirallegiance within the month. After that he'd stepped into the flushed quadrant with Terezi, an arrangement that had been long in coming. And lastly there had been Eridan, always sneering at Sollux and trying to get him away from Feferi until Karkat came along and roared at him for bugging his best friend. Eridan was quite possibly the most annoying troll on the planet, but that was what made him such a good kismesis. And he _was_ a good kismesis, as much as he hated to admit it.

In short, Karkat Vantas was happy. In the few sweeps that had passed since he'd exited the game with all of his friends intact, he'd gained everything and lost nothing. He was content. Completely, irreversibly content.

"Flushed for you," he murmured, pressing his face into the top of Terezi's head.

She snorted. "You're such a sap."

"And…?"

"…And I'm flushed for you too, Karkat."

Yep. Nothing could be better.


	20. Terezi: Enter

**Chapter 20:** **Terezi: Enter**

* * *

At approximately three o'clock the next day, Dave jumped as a very familiar voice echoed through the lab.

"Guess who's back, losers! The world's greatest legislacerator, here to make sure all the baddies get locked away for good!"

And just like that, everything was as it should be.

"Terezi!" John exclaimed, dashing up to her with a grin. "You're back!"

She smirked, and all of her sharp teeth reflected the artificial light menacingly. "John! How's my favorite punching bag?"

"Better now that you're not lost in space," he quipped.

Terezi's smirk widened. Then she was turning and calling out, "Coolkid! How's it hanging?"

Dave shot her back a grin that equaled her own. He hadn't seen her in forever, and he was going to prove that he hadn't lost any of his edge. "Pretty damn low, but I'm sure you can help me get it up."

She cackled. "Ooh, that was a good one! I'm jealous of Karkat, I admit it!"

Hearing his name just made Dave's heart sink. "Well you won't be jealous of him for long if you can't wake him up."

"Right," Terezi said, and her voice was only slightly more somber than it had been a moment prior. "Rose told me about all that! Turns out he wasn't really hallucinating, huh?"

Dave flinched. "Don't remind me."

Footsteps sounded behind him. Then, "Oh! Sollux, Terezi is back!"

"Kanaya!" Terezi greeted, flying forward on her mechanical wings to give the other troll a high five. "And Sollux! Lose the other eye too?"

Sollux glared the best he could with no eyes. "Fuck off, TZ."

She purred. "Still haven't lost your spark, I see."

"Decidedly not."

"Ooh, and the lisp is gone too!"

Sollux groaned. "I'm going to go work on my programing. Call me if something actually _happens,_ okay?"

"Aww, wait!" Terezi called after him. "Don't you want to be there while I work on Karkat?"

That made him pause. "You're doing that now?"

"That's the plan."

Sollux hesitated. Considered. Then, "Fine. But try to be _slightly_ less invasive than normal, okay?"

She grinned. "No promises."

There were more footsteps. The next moment Rose was appearing, no doubt drawn by the noise, and staring at Terezi with surprise. "Terezi?"

"Heya, Rose," she greeted with a smirk. "I told you I was coming; didn't you get my messages?"

"I did, but I wasn't expecting you so soon."

"Well I'm here now," she announced. "You need me for something pretty important, don't you?"

Rose nodded. "Of course. Your presence in the final battle against the souls will be beneficial, and…" She paused. "Wait…did I ever tell you about the souls?"

"No," she snorted. "But Kanaya has been keeping me updated."

Rose shot her partner a look. "Thank you."

Kanaya just dipped her head in acknowledgement.

"Now," Rose went on, "there's something I believe you should get started on immediately."

"Of course." Terezi captchalogued her metal wings and wiped her palms on her pants, smearing off the grease. "Take me to Karkat and I'll get started right away."

"Right this way."

†††

Minutes later, Dave leaned against a wall and watched as Terezi padded up to Karkat and sank into a chair at his side. He knew that Terezi was a Seer of Mind and all, but he wasn't feeling confident in her abilities. Apparently she'd never been in touch with her powers. But Rose seemed confident, so…

Terezi reached out and cupped the side of Karkat's face with surprising tenderness. He recalled Karkat telling him at one point that he'd nearly had something with her, and he wondered if Terezi was remembering that now.

"He's nearly my temperature," she murmured, all of her fire gone. "That's not good." She trailed her fingers across his cheeks, then down to his lips to feel his breath puffing against her skin. "He's so weak…"

Dave felt John brush against his shoulder, clinging to his arm. His concern was palpable.

"Quite weak," Rose agreed. "We don't know how much sopor his body absorbed, but it was enough to render him unconscious without any sign of awakening. He's been this way for nearly a week. We're beginning to fear that he won't pull out of this without help."

Terezi hummed. Her palm settled over Karkat's chest, feeling his mutinous blood pulsing beneath his skin. "You're right. There's no way he can bring himself back from this."

"But you can help him, can't you?" John asked. "You can get him back?"

Terezi looked up at him. "You're his moirail?"

John nodded without hesitation. "I am."

Her gaze turned on Dave. "And you, coolkid? You're his matesprit?"

Dave only stuttered a little. "Yep, that's about right."

"Which means that Sollux here is his kismesis?"

The psionic nodded. "Guilty as charged."

"Hmm." Terezi began brushing through Karkat's hair absentmindedly. She remained silent for an abnormal amount of time before speaking. "I'll do what I can. Leave us."

"What?" John yelped. "But we need to be here when he wakes up!"

"If you're here distracting me, he won't wake up at all!"

John flinched, and Dave immediately placed a comforting hand on his back. "Come on, dude," he murmured. "Let her work. We can wait just outside." He looked up to Sollux questioningly.

The psionic nodded. "Yeah, I'll wait with you guys. Don't want KK to wake up without all of his quadrants here, after all."

 _Right…I really have to ask Karkat about this whole kismesis thing._

Rose followed Sollux's nod with one of her own. "Just call if you need anything okay?"

"Will do." Terezi was already readjusting her chair so that she was seated at Karkat's head, fingers pressing to his temples. "Now get out, and I'll do everything I possibly can to help him.

†††

Terezi traced light circles over Karkat's temples, staring down at his lax features with an odd feeling in her chest. She had quite a past with Karkat, and they hadn't exactly broken things off on good terms, but that didn't mean she liked seeing him like this. _So weak…like he's on the verge of slipping away from us forever…_

She shook her head viciously to clear the unpleasant thoughts. No, she couldn't think about such things now. If she couldn't concentrate, then she would never have a chance at bringing Karkat back from his sopor overdose. She didn't even know if she _could_ do such a thing. But she'd promised Rose and everyone else that she'd try, and so she would.

 _Apparently I'm not as bad a Seer as I think I am, so let's see if I can't hook my claws in him and bring him back._

She crossed her legs on the chair and stooped over the unconscious troll, holding his head firmly between both palms. Karkat's life fluttered beneath her fingers. She would save it. She _would_.

Her eyes slid closed. Not knowing what else to do, she focused hard on Karkat's think pan. What it might feel like, what it might be experiencing, what she might do to access it. She forced her breathing to go slow and deep, matching Karkat's, hoping that it might give her an advantage. And then, after everything was set up, she just…sat.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there. All she did was concentrate and breathe and _concentrate._ If she concentrated hard enough, she thought that maybe she would just—

Her entire body went rigid. _What…?_

She crashed to the ground, unconsciousness overtaking her in one great snap, and was gone.

†††

"Up and at 'em, motherfucker!"

Karkat groaned as his moirail ruffled his hair lovingly. "Don't wanna," he slurred. "Just a few more minutes, Gamz…"

Gamzee chuckled. "No way, my little miracle. Time to get up! I've gotta head back to Tavbro now, and you should crawl up into your recuperacoon if you need to get your sleep on."

"Yeah, yeah…" Karkat lifted his head drearily. He'd slumped over onto Gamzee at some point during their session, and had apparently fallen fast asleep. It was getting late into the night, which mean the sun would be coming up soon. He should sleep.

Gamzee helped him sit fully upright. "Think you need help getting upstairs, Karbo?"

He shook his head. "No, no, I'm fine." Then he yawned, stretching his limbs. "You can go, I'll make my way to my respiteblock eventually."

Gamzee grinned at him. "Thanks, best friend. See you soon?"

"Yeah, of course." Karkat reached up and hooked a few fingers into Gamzee's shirt, dragging him down and pecking him lightly on the lips. "I'll troll you."

The clown troll offered him that goofy grin he always got whenever Karkat kissed him. It wasn't often, but he seemed to love it.

"All right," Karkat said quickly, because Gamzee was going to want to stay the night and cuddle if he didn't get rid of him. "Get out of here, Gamzee."

The troll backed up, expression soft and affectionate. "You got it, Karbro. I'll see you later!" Then he was gone, vanishing out into the late night air.

 _What a goof._ Karkat smiled as he stretched his legs out, sighing contentedly. It had been a while since he'd had a good session with Gamzee, so tonight had been a gogsend. He was tired, though—he'd stayed up later than usual talking to his moirail.

"Karkat?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard the familiar voice of his matesprit behind him. "Terezi!" he exclaimed. "How did you get in here? I didn't even hear you come in!"

She gave him an odd look as she walked forward, glancing up and around at his relaxation block. "What is this?"

He frowned. "What are you talking about? It's my hive."

"Your hive?" She blinked repeatedly, looking confused.

"Well, yeah." He turned fully on the couch, watching as she eyed the walls as if she weren't sure they were real. "Terezi, are you okay? You're acting strange. Are you sick, maybe? Did you get sick after our date?"

She jolted. "Date?"

"Yeah. We went to the movies, remember?"

"…We did?"

Okay, now he was getting concerned. "Maybe you should sleep," he suggested. "You're free to use my spare recuperacoon for the night."

Terezi cocked her head. "No, I…" She rubbed at her temples. "Karkat, this…this can't be real. This _isn't_ real."

"Um…what?"

"It's not real," she repeated, closing her eyes tight as if not looking would make it go away. But it _was_ real. Karkat had been living there for sweeps, so how could it not be real?

"Terezi, you should really sleep." He got to his feet, his own exhaustion forgotten in the face of his matesprit's confusion. "Come on, let's get you up to my respiteblock."

She took a step back the instant he tried to take hold of her arm. "No! I can't forget why I'm here!"

"Rezi, you're really worrying me." He placed a hand on her shoulder worriedly. "Please sleep? For me?"

Her expression turned sour. "Don't talk to me like we're matesprits."

Karkat jerked back as if he'd been burned. "But we _are_ matesprits. We've been matesprits for over a sweep!"

Well, that hadn't worked. Now she just looked nauseated. "No. No, that's not right. _Dave_ is your matesprit."

Karkat blinked. "Who's Dave?"

Terezi's features twisted in horror. "Oh. Oh no, you don't remember anything? You _really_ don't remember?"

"Of course I remember," Karkat said. "We beat the game, made our new universe, abolished the hemospectrum…what else is there to remember?"

"Oh jegus…" Terezi staggered back, leaning against a wall. "Now I get it. We're in your pan, aren't we? You pulled me in."

"We're in real life, Rezi. What's wrong with you?"

"No!" she hissed. "This isn't real, Karkat! You're—gogdamn it, you're in a _coma!"_

He didn't consider it for a moment. "No, that's not possible. You really just need to sleep; I'm sure you'll feel better in the morning."

"Message your Terezi."

"What?"

Her features were hard, determined. "Message your Terezi. It'll prove that I'm not her."

"Okay, then…" Karkat pulled out his phone and fired off a quick message to his matesprit, waiting for the telltale ding that would tell him that it had found its way to the troll standing not three feet from him. But nothing happened, and a moment later he was receiving a sweet good morning message from… _Terezi?_

His head snapped up. "You're not Terezi."

"No," she agreed. "Not yours, at any rate. I'm from the real world."

He thought for a moment. Then, "You're pranking me or something. Nice try, Terezi, but I'm not falling for it."

"I'm not pranking you! I'm only here because you're dying in the real world, and Rose called me in to see if I could wake you up!"

"What's Rose?"

Terezi waved her hands frantically. "She's a human! One of your friends!"

"Human?" he echoed.

"Yes! Human! You know, those pink, hornless monkeys that we created when we won the game but ended up stuck on the meteor!"

He snorted. "Now you're just talking nonsense."

"I'm not! We did win the game, Karkat, but we never created the universe we're in right now. We never made it out together, we never became matesprits. _None of this_ ever happened!"

"Yeah right."

"It's true! We gave up on ever having anything together a long time ago, and then you went and found Dave! He's your matesprit, not me!"

"What kind of a name is that?"

"A _human_ name, Karkat! Because he's _human,_ not like us, and you pity him more than anything else!"

Again, he stopped to think. Then, "Okay. I'm going insane. Hang on, I'll just call Gamzee back and—"

 _"No._ Gamzee isn't your moirail, Karkat."

"What? Of course he is!"

"No, it's John! It's the human named John, and Sollux is your kismesis!"

He could have laughed. "No, Eridan is my kismesis. Gamzee is my moirail, and you're my matesprit. Or at least, _my_ version of you is my matesprit. You're probably just lost from your original timeline. I'm not your Karkat, and you're not my Terezi, so you should just leave and find the guy you're really after."

"You _are_ him," she insisted. "You're him, and you've been lying unconscious in a cot for a week. And apparently you've dreamt up this world! Who knew sopor slime could make you so imaginative?"

"I've never tasted sopor in my life!"

"Gamzee _forced_ you to when he tried to put you out of action for good! He force fed you a ridiculous amount, and it was enough to send you into a coma!"

He laughed, though it was high and strained. "Nice try. Gamzee would never do that to me."

"Not in this fantasy world you've dreamed up, but in real life he _has_ done it to you."

He snorted. "Right." He started for the stairs. "You know what? I'm going to sleep, and you're going to be gone back to your own timeline when I wake up."

"Karkat, no! This isn't—!"

"Goodbye, Terezi. Good luck finding your Karkat." Upstairs he went, fleeing before the unfamiliar troll could speak another word. He crashed into his respiteblock, threw himself into his recuperacoon (ignoring Terezi chasing after him all the while), and sank out of sight. The night passed fitfully, though, and when Karkat opened his eyes what couldn't have been more than a few hours later, it was to a pair of teal eyes glaring down at him from behind a pair of red shades.

"Geez!" he yelped, scrambling to make sure his lower half was covered by the slime. "Terezi, what are you…?" Then he paused. "Oh man, you aren't that different Terezi still, are you?"

She glared. "I'm the Terezi from the real world, and I don't think I _can_ leave until you realize the truth."

He groaned. "Fucking great."

"See, you're swearing again! That's a good start!"

Karkat sank down to his eyes in the slime. "What, does the version of me that you know swear all the time still?"

"Of course you do, it's practically half of your entire character!"

He huffed distastefully. "Well I don't do that any more. I don't need to swear, I'm _happy."_

Happy with your imaginary quadrants?" Terezi countered.

"They're not _imaginary."_

Terezi just stared at him then, shaking her head in astonishment. "Is this what you really want?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you have the perfect life in this little dream world of yours. Perfect quadrants, no worries. Is that what you _want?"_

"Of course it's what I want!" His life was completely _complete._ Why wouldn't he want that?

"You're running," Terezi countered.

"My life is perfect," Karkat snapped. "I don't have to run from anything."

She watched him. "Show me, then."

"Huh?"

"Show me your perfect life. Show me what you do, who your friends are, what you think you want. Make me believe that you're really happy, and that in the back of your mind you don't _know_ that you've left something important behind."

He jolted. Hadn't his Terezi said that same thing to him the other day? _You always have that look, like you've left something important behind that you can't seem to forget._ But no, it had to be a coincidence. He was _happy._

"Well? I promise that after you do, I'll leave you in peace."

"Will you really, or will you just run around tormenting me for the rest of your pathetic life?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I'm not pathetic, Karkat. Not to you."

He rolled his eyes, slinging one arm out of the recuperacoon and pawing around for a towel. "Just go wait in the relaxation block. I'll be out of the ablution trap soon, and then we can go for a walk."

Terezi left, that pained look still on her face, and Karkat was left alone.

 _This is strange,_ he thought as he pulled himself out of the slime and delicately made his way to the ablution trap. He turned it on hot, the water nearly scalding his skin, bringing a pinkish quality to his usual gray. _I thought that we were done with the whole paradox space thing, done with running into people from alternate timelines. But here this Terezi is, insisting that I'm not really from this place._ He scrubbed the slime out of his hair and off his horns. It felt good. _See, I can_ feel _things. This is real. If I was in my own pan, I wouldn't be able to count my own fingers or some shit, and I can definitely do that. And besides, I really am happy here. I have my Terezi, Eridan, and Gamzee. I love all of them, not those weird people that this strange version of Terezi talked about. Why on earth would I fill my quadrants with aliens, anyways? It's definitely not something I would do. It's not real._

He finished up and got out of the ablution trap, toweling down and deciding that he was going to wear a shirt with his symbol on rather than his usual black turtleneck. It was in scarlet, something that still sent a thrill of excitement through him whenever he thought it. He could wear his symbol without fear of death. He could _do_ that. Grinning like an idiot, he pulled on a pair of black pants and shoes to match, then made his way downstairs. Terezi number two was still there, sitting on the couch with her head in her hands.

"Something wrong?" he asked, though he knew that he probably shouldn't.

She shook her head. "I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to get you to remember the truth."

 _Great. This again._ "Come on," he said, ignoring her. "You wanted to go for a walk, and that's what we're going to do."

She only hesitated a moment. Then she got up, straightened her clothing, and completely _froze_ when she got a good look at him. "Your symbol—it's red! I can smell it from here!"

"Well, yeah. The hemospectrum is gone, Terezi, I can actually wear my symbol. Isn't it amazing?"

She shook her head again, but said nothing. She just moved for the door, posture stiff, and let Karkat lead her outside.

It was a beautiful night. Every night was beautiful now. The sky was clear, the stars were shining, and a healthy spattering of trolls were moving along the streets. Everything was as it should be.

"Can you smell it?" Karkat asked, looking to Terezi. She was walking beside him, head turned towards the sky. She couldn't see anything, but if she was anything like his Terezi…

"I can," she murmured. "I can picture all of it."

Karkat raised a hand as one of his neighbors called out a greeting, a smile on his face. "Then you can picture how perfect it is, can't you? We've done well for this timeline."

Terezi was quiet. She just walked, face turning this way and that as if she could actually see what was taking place around her. Then, "This is it?"

"Hmm?"

"Is this what you really wanted to happen after we beat the game? When you found out that we could create a new universe, is this what you had in mind?"

"Well, of course. It's exactly what I had in mind." He looked around, watching the utter happiness of the trolls that came his way. What else could he have wished for other than this? It was perfect.

Terezi hummed. "This is horrible."

"What?" he yelped. "This is a perfect world!"

"Yes, I know it is—that's what makes it so horrible."

"How do you figure? There's no more conflict here, no more fighting! No one has to struggle for anything anymore."

"It isn't _you,_ Karkat. You've never been one to want things handed to you, so what changed?"

"Don't you think I would have _loved_ to have everything handed to me if I could? When I was growing up, all I knew how to do was run and fight, because those were the only two things that got me through the nights! If I could have given that up to be safe, don't you think I would have?"

She looked pained. Even from behind her concealing glasses, she looked pained. "I think that you would have; of course I do. But before long, I also think that you would have realized that having life handed to you isn't something you ever truly wanted. I think you would have become discontent without something to fight for."

 _Yeah right. I'm perfectly happy._ "Tell me about the me from your world, then," he challenged. They were still making their way down the street, and now they were approaching the theater he'd gone to with his Terezi the night before. "What makes me happy there?"

Terezi's teeth worried at her lip. It was incredible she wasn't drawing blood. "I'm not sure I know anymore. I've been gone for months searching for my moirail, and you've been hanging around on our new planet with your quadrants. Some really terrible things have happened recently."

"Searching for your moirail? Who is that in your world?"

"Vriska, obviously. Who else?"

Karkat shrugged. "I'm pretty sure you don't have a moirail in this timeline."

"It's not a _timeline,"_ Terezi hissed, "it's a _fantasy."_

He shrugged again. "Whatever. Why were you looking for Vriska?"

"Because she went missing after she fought Lord English!"

He paused as something flickered in the back of his pan. "Lord English…"

"Yes! You know, the giant green dude with the eight-balls for eyes? The guy you apparently tried to launch yourself at?"

It sounded familiar. "Nope, not ringing any bells."

Terezi growled. "Then what about our new world? The one where prospitarians and dersites and salamanders and all the other weird creatures came together and started their own society, and we hopped on for the ride? Do you remember that? Do you remember our time on the meteor, Gamzee and Eridan turning against us, our final battle in the game, our first day outside it? Do you remember building your civilization, or building your relationship with Dave, or starting to deal with the hallucinations, or Gamzee attacking you?"

Something in the back of his mind twinged. "No, I don't. I'm telling you, you're in the wrong timeline with the wrong version of me!"

"I'm _not._ Karkat, you have to remember! In my timeline, you're just as cold and irritable as ever, even _after_ we beat the game and arrived in our new world. You're weak right now, and you've never been the best fighter, but you're the greatest leader I've ever seen—not that I would ever say that to you while you're awake. You pity Dave Strider and John Egbert, and you hate Sollux Captor. You have to _remember!"_

A few trolls were starting to give them odd looks now. Terezi was yelling in the middle of the street, after all. "Quiet down!" he hissed.

"I can't quiet down!" she snapped. "You have to remember now, or you'll never wake up!"

"Shush!" he insisted, looking around apologetically. "Why is your version of me in a coma, anyways? What happened to him?"

"Gamzee attacked you," she bit out. "He held you down and forced you to consume enough sopor slime to put you to sleep."

"Gamzee is my _moirail._ Why would he do that to me?"

"Because he's not your moirail, John is!"

He shook his head. "I've never even heard that name before."

Terezi cuffed him over the ear, ignoring his consequent yelp of surprise. "You _idiot_ , why are you choosing to forget? I haven't been around you enough to know for sure, but it seems like you really loved your quadrants! And now here you are, wilting away in a dream while they suffer!"

His blood pusher panged, and he wasn't sure why. He didn't _know_ these people, why was he feeling guilty?

"Your real quadrants are waiting for you out there, Karkat. And we _need_ you for this final battle against the spirits of the deceased trolls."

It sounded so familiar. Why did it sound familiar? "You need _your_ Karkat."

"You still don't believe me?" Terezi hissed. "You still want to stay here?"

"I…" He trailed off, alarmed by the fierce glare Terezi was shooting him.

Terezi sneered. "Fine! You've shown me your world. Now, I'm going to show you _ours."_

He barely had time to yelp before Terezi was lunging at him, fingers pressing to his temples and taking his consciousness away.

†††

Karkat sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes snapped open, staring up at a very gray ceiling. His think pan raced as he tried to put together just what had happened. All he remembered was Terezi grabbing onto him, then the world melting away into nothing. "Ow…"

"You're awake," Terezi's familiar voice echoed. "Well, not _really_ awake—but more awake than you were before."

Karkat slowly pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around at his surroundings. It was…a lab? "What did you do?" he groaned, rubbing at his head. "Don't tell me you sucked me into your timeline!"

Terezi shook her head. "All I did was dislodge a few memories. This is what _your_ pan created, Karkat."

"Since when are you in touch with your powers as Seer of Mind?"

"I'm not. I didn't know what would happen when I grabbed onto you like that, I just hoped that it would be something helpful." She gestured around them. "It looks like I was right. This is coming from _your_ pan, Karkat, not mine. I haven't spent nearly enough time in the lab to recreate it this accurately."

Karkat looked around. Sure enough, the room was recreated impeccably. Gray walls, tiled floors, a ceiling that was a shade of gray only one lighter from the walls. A neat row of computers sat on one wall. One of them was turned on, and a shadowy figure worked there tirelessly. On the other side of the room there was a cluster of cots, two more figures sitting there side by side. They were too blurry to recognize. Around the room, he saw more and more figures either leaning against walls, sitting on the ground, or facing each other as if in conversation. And in front of him, shades glinting in the dull, artificial light, was Terezi.

"What is this place?" he asked finally. "You said it was a lab?"

She nodded. "This is a place on the new planet. It's where you're sleeping right now."

Karkat got to his feet as if in a dream. He took a few steps forward, and his feet made dull, thumping sounds against the tile. "Who are they?"

Terezi turned her head towards the shadowy figures. She inhaled deeply, then decided, "Your friends."

"Really?" He padded towards the figure at the computer. "The ones from your world?"

"The ones from _our_ world."

He was standing right behind one of the figures now. But they still looked fuzzy, edges blending into nothing and face a dark swirl of nothingness. "Why can't I see them?"

"You don't remember," Terezi said. "Your think pan is too scrambled to recall what they look like."

His fingertips skirted towards the figure he was standing directly in front of. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted to _touch_ them. "Which one is this?"

"I'm not sure. You'll just have to touch them and find out."

 _Touch them?_ "What will happen?"

Terezi shrugged. "It's your memory. You decide."

That didn't make him feel any better. He was beginning to feel strange now, something itching in the back of his think pan.

"Go on," Terezi urged.

His hand was still extended, fingers barely an inch from the shadowy figure. He swallowed. Steeled himself. Then he reached forward and sealed his palm to the figure's shoulder, and suddenly everything just _changed._

The entire world was suddenly washed with white. All the other figures were still there, but they were diluted and faded, half-forgotten as the figure that Karkat had touched grew more and more solid, taking on features that slowly began to seem familiar.

Then she was just _there_. She was standing in front of him, a puzzled expression on her face, exclaiming, "Karkat?"

He stared, eyes wide. "Kanaya?"

"Yes, of course. Is something wrong? You look a bit confused."

"I…" He trailed off, staring up at the troll. She looked so _different._ Relaxed. Happy. He hadn't seen Kanaya in ages back on Alternia, and she'd always been so concerned with running the world's new democracy with Feferi that she'd never had the chance to really talk to anyone, and her forehead had always been creased with worry. Now she looked…happier. Better.

"How are you doing?" Kanaya asked with a smile. "I heard that you and Dave decided to build a hive together."

He blinked. _What?_

"You two seem happy with each other," she carried on. "Rose and I have been meaning to build a hive of our own, but we've just been so busy in the lab that we haven't had time! You won't mind if we set up shop near you, will you?"

"Um…n-no," he managed, voice refusing to obey him. "That's fine."

"Oh good—Rose will be so pleased to live near Dave! Thank you, Karkat."

 _This is so weird._ He opened his mouth to ask Kanaya something, but nothing came out. And more than that, Kanaya was already fading back into the shadows, form blurring as the room darkened back to its former state. Soon Karkat was just standing there, staring at a hazy shadow whose features he could no longer make out. "What just happened?"

Terezi's voice shook him out of his stunned stupor. "A memory, if I had to guess."

"A memory?"

"Most likely. Go on, Karkat—speak with someone else."

He stepped back from Kanaya. _I should go back to my hive,_ he thought. _My Terezi will be wondering where I am, and Eridan was supposed to come see me tonight, and Gamzee won't last long without his moirail there to keep him grounded._ But still he moved to another figure and reached out, overcome with immense curiosity. Even if he was just seeing the memories of some other version of himself, he wanted to know what that other version had been through. What could have been.

The next figure's features sharpened as he touched them, the room lightening. She turned to face him, and he saw that she wasn't a troll. She was pale and hornless, teeth appearing blunt in her mouth as she chirped, "Heya, Karkat! Long time no see!"

"Oh, yes!" a second choice chimed in. "It's been a while. How have you been?"

He looked to the second person, and _she_ wasn't a troll either. What she was was _green,_ skin a deep hue that reminded him of something he couldn't quite put his finger on. "Hey," he greeted awkwardly. He had no clue who these people were.

"The village is looking good," the pink creature said. A human, maybe? Was this what a human looked like? "Callie and I have set up shop to the east, and Jane built her house right next to ours. Jake and Dirk are to the west with Jade, I think."

He nodded, feeling more and more confused by the moment.

"I'm worried about John, though," the human went on. "He made his home all the way up the north, and he's all by himself! That guy…I wonder what he was thinking."

"Yeah," he agreed stiffly. "That's pretty strange."

"It's okay though," she continued. "Dave has been visiting him a lot, right?"

"Yeah, he's been spending more time over there than he has with me." Then he paused. Where had _that_ come from? He didn't even _know_ this Dave person!

"I'm sure he's just making sure his friend is okay," she said. "You don't have anything to worry about."

His stomach clenched. He felt _nervous._ "Thanks, Roxy."

She grinned. "No problem, Karkat. See you around!" And then she was fading, Callie along with her, as the world darkened once again.

Karkat stepped back. His pan was buzzing with confusion now, whirling with the force of everything that was being thrown his way.

"You remembered her name," Terezi said. She hadn't moved from her spot leaning against the wall. "How could you have done that if you don't know her?"

He shrugged, feeling a deep sense of unease beginning to overtake him. "I don't know. Coincidence?"

Terezi snorted. "Right. Just talk to someone else, hardhead."

He did, only because he didn't want to have to face Terezi. He walked to the next closest figure and reached out to touch them, this time with less hesitation, and watched as their features sharpened and the light returned.

"Oh! Karkat!"

It was another human. _Jade,_ his mind whispered. "Hey," he said.

"It's been a while," she said softly, _pityingly._ "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," he said with a frown. "Why do you ask?"

She fidgeted awkwardly. "Well…everyone's been worried since Dave left to go live in the north with John."

 _Wait…my supposed matesprit_ left _me?_ But even as he thought it, he knew it was the truth. A flicker of anger started up in the pit of his stomach, and it felt _right._ "Don't worry about me. I'm fine."

"Are you really?" she asked gently. "It's okay to be in pain, you know. If you ever need someone to talk to—"

"I don't need to talk," he bit out. "I'm fine, got that?"

She recoiled. "I was just trying to help! God, Karkat, you're always so _angry!"_

"Am I?" he asked. It just as right as his anger, hearing it. He'd always been angry.

Jade just pouted at him, arms crossed over her chest. "Yeah, you never stop snapping at people! It's a miracle that Dave could stand you for as long as he could, and I can't believe John's still trying to message you when it's _obvious_ that you're too much of a grump to ever care about him!"

Karkat jumped, startled, bursting out, "Wait, I—!"

He never got the chance to finish. Jade faded back to a fuzzy, indistinguishable shape.

"Well that went well," Terezi snorted. "I don't know why I'm surprised, you've never gotten along well with _anyone_."

He snarled, not bothering with a verbal response as he stalked forward. The next two figures he came across were standing shoulder to shoulder, and he touched the two of them at the same time to bring their memory to life.

"Don't lie to me!" one of them snapped, lunging forward and curling his fingers in Karkat's collar. "You were the one that murdered them and you know it! You take some kind of pleasure in killing, don't you? You're _sick."_

"Dirk, don't!" the second figure begged, tugging at his wrist as Karkat just stared, slack-jawed in surprise. "Come on, you know it's not gentlemanly to do such a thing!"

"It's not gentlemanly to start _killing_ prospitarians and dersites!" Dirk retorted. "It has to be you; you're the only one without an alibi! No one else is willing to do anything about it, but I won't hesitate to put a sword through your gut if you so much as think about—!"

Karkat jerked backwards, and the two figures were immediately thrown into shadow. His chest was heaving now, he realized, his entire body seized with a horrible panic that seemed to have been brought on by the memory. His hands grabbed at his upper arms, and he found himself overcome with jolting relief that his hands were still there. _Wait, my hands …?_

Terezi said nothing. She just stared, expression unreadable as she watched him clutch at his own arms. _Go on,_ she seemed to be saying. _Another._

He obeyed without question, and the next person was solidifying before he had the chance to really think about what he was doing. _Rose,_ his pan supplied. _Kanaya's matesprit._

"Have you talked to John yet?" she asked softly. Clearly this memory was from the middle of a conversation. "The sooner you absolve your guilt, the sooner you can start throwing off these hallucinations."

 _Guilt? Hallucinations?_

Rose's expression softened. "I know you won't believe me, but the deaths of your friends wasn't your fault. The six trolls that died did not do so because of you."

He prepared himself to feel a jolt of shock at hearing that six of his friends were dead. But all he felt was a dull ache deep in his chest that told him _yes,_ this was right, this was _true._ He had known this. He had known that his friends were dead.

"How are your hallucinations?" Rose pressed. "Are they getting worse?"

"Yes," he found himself saying. "I hear them all the time now."

"Karkat, you _must_ talk to John."

Yes. He had to talk to his moirail. He pulled away from Rose and turned, not hesitating for a moment as he grabbed onto the next figment, and Jane was suddenly murmuring, "There's something really dark in your mind, Karkat, something I can't heal," and then he was gasping and pulling away and moving on and grabbing the next and—

"Woah, KK, calm down! You're looking a little nervouth there!"

He blinked. Then blinked again. "S-Sollux…?"

He shot him an odd look—one that came from his singular eye, because the other was just _gone._ And he'd known that. He'd _known_ that it was gone. "Yeah, I'm here. Come to get your ath kicked again? You remember what happened latht time, don't you?"

 _Last time?_ He frowned, then sneered as he remembered Sollux chucking an entire bowl of popcorn onto his head. "You'll pay for that, you insufferable fuckass!"

"Jutht try it, KK! I'll beat the shit out of you without lifting a finger!"

"You're not strong enough to take me out, you bifurcated freakshow!"

"I have more power in my little finger than you have in your entire body!"

"Oh, like _that's_ not the biggest fucking exaggeration on the planet!"

Sollux flicked his wrist, and Karkat felt the ghost of a psionic grip close around his throat. It didn't hurt; Sollux wasn't really trying to do him harm. But it was a reminder of his power, a fierce grazing of claws over his heart, and he saw red. Sollux would not make him feel _weak_ like this! He wouldn't allow it!

"I fucking _hate_ you more than anything on this entire gogdamn dumpster fire of a planet!" he roared, lunging for Sollux and snarling as the other troll stepped cleanly out of the way and beat him into the ground with a flicker of psionic power.

"The thentiment is returned," Sollux sneered, standing over him and glowering even as he began to blur around the edges and return to nothing but a faded shadow.

Karkat lurched to his feet, teeth bared in preparation to launch himself right the fuck at his kismesis and sink them into his throat. Oh, he was going to _kill—_

Wait. His kismesis?

Karkat's expression immediately fell into one of confusion as he stared at the shadow that had been Sollux not a minute prior. Sollux? His kismesis? But…he _was._ He _was_ his kismesis. They'd been blackflirting since they were almost three sweeps old, how could he _not_ be his kismesis?

"Really?" Terezi asked, and Karkat realized that some of what he'd just thought had escaped into the outside world. "But I thought _Eridan_ was your kismesis, Karkat!"

"He…was…" he tried, rubbing at his eyes in confusion. "I don't…"

Terezi pushed him towards the other side of the room, where the final two figures sat side by side on a cot. "You will. Talk to them."

He staggered towards them in a daze, pan swirling with confusion. _I don't know what's real anymore._

And then he brushed his fingers against the first figure, and he was suddenly staring into the bluest eyes he had ever seen in his life.

"Karkat," the human whispered, and he knew immediately that this was his moirail. The sensation of calm that washed over him upon seeing his face was unmistakable.

"John," he breathed out.

John smiled, but it was pained. "It's okay, Karkat. You're not going to be punished for killing that prospitarian. It wasn't your fault, it was Gamzee's, and we all know that now."

He had killed someone. He had killed a prospitarian, believing that she was Gamzee, and had been locked away as a result.

"You're going to be okay," John repeated in a low rasp. "Terezi is going to bring you back. I'm not sure what's going on inside that head of yours, but I'm sure that whatever it is, Terezi can puzzle it out and bring you home."

He said nothing. He didn't think that he was a part of this memory. If he was really lying out on a cot in the middle of a lab, then this was John talking to him while he slept.

"I really hope you're not gone," John whispered. "Because we _need_ you, Karkat. All three of us need you in different ways, and you'd better listen to Terezi whenever she manages to find you."

He turned his head to where Terezi was leaning against the wall. Her face was angled towards the floor, and her expression was unreadable.

"I'll see you in a while," the human finished. "Good luck, Karkat. Come back to us soon."

Karkat felt his chest throb painfully as John faded into shadow. There was only one figure left he hadn't spoken to, and he _knew_ who he was. He was Dave Strider—his matesprit.

He didn't wait for Terezi to prompt him. He reached out and hugged the figure to him as hard as he could.

Dave's laugh was a rumble that rolled straight through to his blood pusher. "Hey there, Karkles. Starting to remember us?"

"This isn't a memory," he breathed in return. "I didn't experience this."

"No," Dave agreed. "But you will, one day."

"How do you know?"

"I'm the Knight of Time, dude. It's kinda in the job description."

Karkat closed his eyes, pressing his face into Dave's chest. "As _if_ you have the power to see the future," he laughed shakily. "Not you, the complete fucking loser of a time traveler. Do you _remember_ how many times you died in the game?"

Another rumble of a laugh. "Yeah, pretty sure I do. But here I am, prepared to hold you in my incredibly cool and strong arms like the princess you are."

"Fuck off, Strider." But there was no heat behind his words.

"Are you ready to wake up now?" Dave asked. Fingers traced up his spine, curling in the hair at the base of his neck. "There are a few things I need to apologize for, but I can't do that while you're trapped in your own head. You need to leave that world behind, Karkat. It's not the one you belong to."

"But I've lived there for sweeps," he whispered.

"It wasn't real. You _know_ that."

He did. The world he'd created had been a figment of his own think pan, formed by his childish, idealistic thoughts of what their new universe would be like. It was already fading.

Dave pulled back and smiled at him. "There we go…just let it all go, Karkles. We're waiting for you out here…so wake up, okay?"

He was still for a long moment. He stared up at Dave, taking in his blunt features, dulled teeth, and pathetic, pink human skin, and he felt his blood pusher melt. "Okay," he whispered. Then he cleared his throat. "If it's that big a fucking deal for you, I mean, I guess I could be bothered to snap out of it."

Dave smirked. "There's my matesprit."

His eyes widened. Dave had never called him that before.

"See you soon, Karkles."

Then he was gone, and Karkat was staring at an empty room. All of the figments were gone, and his memories were restored.

"Ready to go?" Terezi asked.

He looked back at her, and for a moment he felt a pang of guilt that he would be leaving his Terezi, Gamzee, and Eridan behind without their respective quadrants. But then he remembered that it wasn't real, that it had never _been_ real, and his eyes slid momentarily closed as he allowed everything he'd thought he'd felt to slip through his fingers.

"Fuck this. I'm ready."

Terezi smirked. "There's the Karkat I know."

She reached out for him, and the world faded to black.


	21. Karkat: Awaken

**Chapter 21:** **Karkat: Awaken**

* * *

Karkat opened his eyes with a soft sigh, staring up at the familiar gray of the lab ceiling. _I'm back,_ he realized, and he'd never felt better.

"Oww…" someone groaned from the floor. "Damn it, Karkat, that was the _worst."_

"Not my fault you decided to go in after me," he countered, poking his head over the side of the cot and seeing Terezi where she'd apparently fallen flat on her face.

She just groaned in response, rolling onto her back and staring sightlessly at the ceiling. "Do you remember everything, at least?"

He nodded. His pan was still pounding a bit, and his entire body was sluggish and weak from the sopor and from the days he'd spent unconscious, but he remembered as much as was possible for him to remember. "Yeah, I do." Then he followed it up with a begrudging, "Thanks for the save."

"You'll have plenty of time to thank me _thoroughly_ later," she quipped. "For now, do you think you're feeling well enough for me to bring in your quadr—"

 _"Yes,"_ he hissed immediately, pushing himself as upright as he could and leaning against the wiry headboard. "Jegus, yes—I _have_ to see them."

Terezi snorted. "Don't blame me when they start annoying the shit out of you." She got to her feet and half-staggered towards the door, visibly weakened by the exertion of diving into someone else's think pan without even really knowing what she was doing. He didn't hear what she said to the people outside, but he _definitely_ heard someone squealing in excitement before the door was suddenly being bashed open and there was a very excited John Egbert barreling into the room.

"Karkat!" he gasped, looking the happiest he'd ever seen him. "Oh my god, you're totally awake!" He was at the troll's side in a heartbeat, tackling him down in a fierce hug.

"John, I can't _breathe!"_ he choked, secretly relishing the feeling of his moirail pressed so tightly against him.

The door creaked. "Go easy on the guy, Egderp," a familiar voice sounded, and another chimed in a moment later.

"Yeah, don't want to squeeze his blood pusher right out of his chest."

He felt a tugging sensation around his torso , and then John was being lifted off him and plunked into one of the chairs at his bedside. In his place was Dave, leaning down and— _oh my gog,_ Dave was kissing him.

They'd never kissed before. They'd lived together for months, danced around each other when it was _obvious_ they both wanted the same thing, even confessed their love (or in Karkat's case, pity) to each other, and never once had their lips met until Dave barged into the room, tore John off of him, and mashed them together.

Dave pulled back after only a split-second, though, swallowing hard to mask his uncertainty and embarrassment. "I'm, um…"

Karkat scrambled to gather his wits. "Please," he scoffed, rolling his eyes. "That was without a doubt the most pathetic kiss I've ever experienced in my entire life. Is that how you greet your poor, decrepit matesprit after he awakens from a coma?"

Dave's face lit up. "Is that so? Then I guess I'll just have to—"

Sollux elbowed him out of the way before he had the chance to lean in again. "Fuck off, Strider, none of us want to see you lock lips with your matesprit in the middle of the lab."

Dave sneered. "And we want to see the two of you go for each other's throats instead?"

"Okay!" John yelped, stepping in between the two of them. "We're not here to fight, we're here to say hi to Karkat! So stop fighting and focus on what matters!"

Karkat blinked. When had _this_ happened? Granted, it wasn't uncommon for a troll's moirail to act as an auspice between their matesprit and their kismesis, but he was surprised to see two humans engaging in such behavior. And _unknowingly,_ too.

Sollux knocked him upside the head with a blow far gentler than it could have been. "Glad you're awake, KK."

"Glad to _be_ awake," he said. "But what the _fuck_ happened to your eye?"

Sollux turned his face away with a grumble. "Eridan."

He paused. "Wait. _What?"_

"Yeah…" John came up to sit beside him, leaning into his shoulder. "After you went down, we figured out that you weren't hallucinating. Apparently the game spat the spirits of all the dead trolls right back out into our world, and they're becoming more and more solid as time passes. We're going to have to fight them soon!"

Oh, okay, that made perfect— _no it didn't what the fuck?_

"It's a long story," Dave said, seeing Karkat's incredulity. "Don't worry about it now, you should just try to recover."

"I'm already feeling better," he pointed out. "If you think you're keeping me in this fucking cot for more than another day, you're _dead._ I can't stand lying down for another minute." He shuffled against John, pressing his feet to the ground and then groaning as his think pan suddenly rushed with dizziness.

"Easy," Sollux said, "you're a fucking wreck right now, you idiot. You need to get some water in you, and then something to eat that's easy on the stomach. You haven't had anything other than what we could manage to shove down your throat while you were unconscious." He padded towards the door. "I'll grab you something. Hang on."

"Think you can navigate now that you're blind?" Karkat called after him, purely for the sake of making him growl.

"Fuck you, KK!"

Karkat snickered as Sollux vanished to go grab him something to drink, John nuzzling into his side the instant the other troll was gone. "I can't believe you're back," he murmured. "We were afraid you weren't coming home."

Karkat looked up to Dave. The human was staring at the ground, shades masking his eyes—but anyone could tell that he was hiding just how shaken this whole mess had made him.

"You should thank Terezi," he decided to say, eyes still locked on Dave. "If she hadn't come to get me, I don't think I would have woken up."

Dave flinched. Something was eating at him.

"Hey, John?" Karkat murmured, nudging at his moirail's shoulder. "Do you think you could to help Sollux with alchemizing something to eat?"

"Huh? You want _me_ to help Sollux with computers?"

He nodded. "Yeah. But I guess if it's too much trouble, then…"

"No, no!" he yelped, shooting to his feet. "I'll be right back, okay?"

Then he was gone, and Karkat and Dave were left alone.

After that, the room was cast into an uncomfortable silence as the two both tried to sneak glances at each other without letting the other know that they were doing it.

Karkat was the first to crack. "So—"

"I'm sorry!"

He blinked. "Okay. That's one way to start a conversation."

Dave winced. "Crap…I totally just blurted that out, didn't I?"

"Yep."

Wordlessly Dave moved to his side and lowered himself down onto the cot, taking up John's position. "Look," he started, looking the most uncomfortable Karkat had ever seen him. "We just had our loving reunion and all that shit, and I'm thrilled that you're back in the land of the living, but that doesn't change the fact that we parted on poor terms. At the very least, I need to apologize and tell you a few things I've learned since you keeled over."

 _Oh, right._ He'd been so elated to see Dave again that their disastrous relationship had momentarily slipped his mind. "Okay then, shoot."

He did. "In short, I was a complete asshole."

"Glad you realized that," Karkat snorted. "Because you're right—you were a real fucking idiot."

"Yeah…" Dave rubbed at the back of his head, embarrassed. "Look, Karkat, there are a few things that I think I need to say to you before things get any worse." He held up a hand, shushing Karkat before he could start to protest. " _No_. I need to say that I was an idiot, and that while I'm not entirely thrilled with the concept of you running around being involved with your other quadrants, I think I understand now that you _need_ them in order to function. You need John, and apparently Sollux is a part of this whole clusterfuck so you need him too. But I think the part of this that I've been overlooking this whole time is that you need _me_ just as much as you need them, and that makes it a little better."

Karkat's eyes went wider and wider the longer he spoke. "Dave…"

He wasn't done. "So I guess what I'm saying is that if you need your other quadrants, I'm not really okay with it, but I'm also not _not_ okay with it. You need them, so you should have them—but as your matesprit I retain the right to set stipulations! This whole thing is still really weird for me, so I'd appreciate it if you could _not_ go around kissing John in front of me, or Sollux if that's what your relationship is going to lead to. Just keep it separate from me and we'll be all good." Then he paused, expression sobering. "Or…keep it separate from me as long as you still _want_ something with me. I know I've been a real asshole, but I think we can make this whole thing work if you're willing to try."

Oh gog, he sounded like something out of a bad romcom. Well, if that's how he wanted to play things, Karkat would gladly oblige. "Say it."

"What?"

"I want to hear you say it."

Dave blushed. Actually fucking _blushed,_ gogdamnit, and it was the most pitiful thing he'd ever seen. "I…I love you, Karkat. I love you and I want to be your matesprit."

Karkat forced down his smirk and stared, just to make him squirm. The idiot _deserved_ it for what he'd put him through.

Dave fidgeted, no doubt unnerved at his lack of response. "Um, if you don't—"

"Move in with me."

He balked. "What?"

"Move in with me," Karkat repeated. "A lot of your stuff is still over at the place you built with John, so stop being a complete and utter fuckass about it and move in with me for real. And _stay_ there, gogdamn you, even after this whole mess is finally over."

Something akin to hope glimmered in Dave's eyes. "So does that mean…?"

He narrowed his eyes. _"Yes,_ you moron, I pity you. I pity you more than anything else in this fucking _disaster_ of a world, and I want you to stay with me for as long as you're willing." The words tasted sickly sweet on his tongue. He thought that he didn't mind the flavor. Wanted to taste it more often, actually. And so he said it again. "Dave Strider, I pity you. I pity y—mph!"

Now _that_ was a flushed kiss. All fears of rejection aside, Dave went for him with fervor, pulling him close and mashing their lips together with a force that was equal parts firm passion and gentle adoration. Karkat couldn't help a hum of approval as he reached for his matesprit and twisted his fingers in his hair, tugging him down and tilting his head for a better angle even as Dave wound an arm around his waist and splayed the other across his chest, gentle murmurs of appreciation escaping in between light brushes of skin on skin.

 _This is heaven._ It was the same thing he'd thought upon first locking lips with John, but this was a heaven of an entirely different nature. _Dave…if only you could truly understand how trolls differentiate between their romantic partners. If you could, then I know you wouldn't doubt me at all when I told you that I pitied you like no other._

Dave drew back with an expression that was almost awed, as if he'd never imagined that he would get this far.

"Don't look so surprised, fuckass," Karkat murmured, leaning forward to press a light kiss to his matesprit's nose, then his cheeks, before returning to his lips for a brief, fleeting moment.

"I just never thought…"

Karkat cut him off with a kiss. "Then stop thinking. I'm not in the mood for thinking."

"I…" Dave trailed off. Then he grinned, a hint of his normal swagger returning as he reached down to ruffle the troll's hair. "You know what? Neither am I." He twisted slightly, readjusting his position, and then he was leaning back against the headboard with Karkat pulled close, an arm thrown sloppily around his waist. "How about we just sit here and wait for John and Sollux to get back?"

"Sounds great," Karkat sighed, pressing as hard as he could into Dave's chest, slotting his head up under his chin. He was still tired, still feeling the effects of the slime making its way out of his system, and all he really wanted to do was sleep. But his mouth was dry and his stomach was empty, and if he got to curl up with his matesprit while he waited for his moirail and his kismesis to bring him something to eat, he thought he could handle it.

"No going to sleep yet!" Dave teased, poking him in the nose. "Keep your eyes open, Karkles. I don't want you going back under before you get something in you."

He hummed.

"Karkat, I'm serious!"

"Right, right…don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

There was a moment of silence. Then Dave was pressing a kiss to the top of his head, murmuring, "No, you're not. Because when that final battle hits, anyone that wants to get to you will have to go through your quadrants first."

†††

Karkat stared in disbelief as Rose finished explaining everything, finally shutting her mouth after a solid thirty minutes of talking. It was hard to believe that _so much_ had happened in the week he'd been unconscious.

He realized suddenly that everyone was staring at him, waiting for a reaction. He'd been brought to the main room of the lab, where he'd been pushed down into a chair to preserve his strength as the people whisked in and out, working on their respective tasks, and now all of those people were just _watching_. "Uh," he started, still feeling overwhelmed. "No offense, but I'm pretty sure you're all whacked out of your fucking pans."

"You yourself observed that your experiences could not possibly have been caused by hallucinations," Rose reminded him. "Is this really so unbelievable?"

He stopped. Thought about it. "Yes."

From across the lab, Dirk called out, "Rose, send him over here to the main monitor. I'll convince him in about three seconds."

Rose looked to him. "It's not a bad idea, if you're willing to listen."

He shrugged. "Go over to the person who tried to slice off my hands? Yeah, why not?" He tried to get to his feet, only staggering slightly. Rose was there to support him in a heartbeat, taking the place of his quadrants, who were all off doing _something._ He wasn't sure what. He half-staggered his way across the lab to where Dirk was standing in front of a huge monitor. "These are those thermal scanner things?" he asked. "Looks like a whole lot of hoofbeastshit if you ask me."

Dirk rolled his eyes. "Just look at the screen, dude."

He did. There were tons of white dots all over the place, which he assumed were the villagers and the salamanders and other living things on their part of the planet. Aside from the white dots, though, there were twenty-one that were colored and labeled. As he shoved his face closer to the monitor, he was only slightly surprised to see that several of them were labeled with his deceased friends' names and blood colors, along with his own. "This is supposed to convince me?" he asked, curling his lip. "It's just a bunch of dots!"

Rose narrowed her eyes, wrist flicking in order to snatch something out of her sylladex. The next moment she was plunking a bunch of violet rocks on the table, biting out, "How would you explain this, then?"

He picked one up gingerly, pressing his fingers to the flaking surface of the thing. _It's blood,_ he realized.

"Karkat, where could that blood have come from if not from Eridan?"

"A lusus creature?" he guessed, but his gut twisted as he realized that Rose was right. This was Eridan's blood.

"Who else could have taken Sollux's powers from him in that manner, then? Kanaya has informed me that the only weapon that has _ever_ been able to effectively deal with Sollux's psionics is Ahab's Crosshairs—and Eridan is the only one that can wield that weapon effectively."

He shook his head. He knew it was true, but he desperately didn't want to believe it. Having to fight his friends again, even if they'd gone out of their pans and were trying to kill them…it made his stomach churn. He didn't want to think about it.

Rose's expression softened as she saw the conflicted look on his face. "It's okay to feel torn," she told him. "But if you're fit to fight by the time the souls are fully revived, we would appreciate your help."

"Who would you send me to fight?" he asked.

"Dave and John wanted you to go with them, originally," Rose said. "But seeing as they're going to fight Gamzee, I don't think it's a good idea."

He barely bit back a growl at the thought of meeting Gamzee in battle. He wanted nothing more than to rip the troll's horns off and shove them up his waste chute, wanted to hook his sickles into his eyes and _yank._ But he knew better than anyone else that Gamzee could and _would_ put him on the ground with a single growl. He would be a liability.

"No," he agreed, realizing that Rose was waiting for his input. "Leave that one to John and Dave."

She gave a relieved nod, as if she'd been expecting him to insist on attacking Gamzee. "Good. In that case, I'd like to assign you to Tavros."

"Tavros." The weakest target there was.

"Yes. With Jake."

He almost rolled his eyes. Almost. "So I'm stuck with Jake on the easiest target again, am I?"

Rose raised a brow. "Do you think you could handle going up against one of the higher bloods? Equius, or even Eridan?"

He shrank back, bitterness festering in his core. "No…I'll take Tavros down."

"And this is assuming that you're battle ready by then," Rose reminded him. "If you're still too weak to put up a good fight, we'll leave you here with Callie and Sollux."

 _That's right…_ He'd almost forgotten that Sollux's eyes being gone meant that his psionics were nonfunctional too. _That's horrible._

"Karkat?" Rose pressed. "Is that acceptable?"

He nodded. "Yeah, that's fine."

"Excellent. In that case, have fun convincing Dave, John, and Sollux that you're fit to fight."

Ooh…that wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to.

Rose smiled at the expression on his face. "Don't worry, Karkat—I'm sure that if you're ready to fight, they'll know it."

He wasn't so sure.

†††

"No. Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Karkat snapped, locking Dave down with a harsh glare. "I can handle Tavros!"

"Because I'm your matesprit and I said so."

"You're my matesprit, not my fucking lusus!" he snarled. "Egbert, Captor, back me up on this one!"

John raised his hands defensively. "Don't look at me! Karkat, you just woke up, so you really shouldn't be straining yourself!"

"I'm perfectly fine! I've eaten and had time to rest, and I'll be ready to tear Tavros's head right the fuck off the instant I get the chance!"

"You just barely woke up!" John protested.

Karkat grumbled, turning his head away and glaring at the ground. "I can fucking handle it."

Dave just stared. Then he paced forward, taking one step, two steps, three, and gave Karkat a light shove on the shoulder that made him shake like a leaf.

"Hey!" he yelped, steadying himself against the nearest wall.

"Right," Dave snorted, "you're solid as a rock, dude. Sollux, back _me_ up on this one."

There was a sharp bark of a laugh from his other side. "Sorry, KK, but your matesprit's right about this one. Stay away from the fighting and hang back here with me."

"This is fucking unbelievable! I can handle this, just give me some time to rest a little more!"

"You're resting more no matter what," Dave told him. "But unless you're good as new by the time the battle hits, none of us want you out there."

He growled, baring his teeth, only for Sollux to snap, "Don't growl at your matesprit, KK, that's fucking rude!"

He snapped his teeth down on his tongue with furious helplessness

"I swear, you've lost all grasp on etiquette since you started filling your quadrants with humans," Sollux snarled. "KK, when your moirail _and_ your matesprit _and_ your kismesis tell you not to do something, you _don't fucking do it."_

He recoiled, because _gogdamnit,_ Sollux was _right._ Going against the wishes of all of his quadrants would make him the biggest asshole on the planet. "Sorry," he muttered. "But if I'm ready to fight by the time the battle hits, you have to _promise_ me that you won't protest when I decide to fight."

Dave shrugged. "Sounds good to me, dude."

"Yeah," John agreed, "that doesn't sound unreasonable."

Sollux hummed his agreement.

"Perfect, then." Karkat turned, only swaying slightly, and took off in the direction of the meal block in the lab.

"Wait, where are you going?" John called after him.

"To get something to eat," was the sharp response. "I have to get my strength back, don't I?"

John looked after him worriedly, but Dave just shrugged in agreement. "Guess that's one way to go about it." He padded after him, his other two quadrants following a moment later.

 _I have no clue how much time I have before this final battle hits,_ Karkat thought. _It could happen tomorrow or it could happen a week from now—and I have to make sure that when the time comes, I'm ready to help Jake take Tavros down._

He desperately hoped he was up to the task.


	22. Vriska: Be Found

**Chapter 22:** **Vriska: Be Found**

* * *

After that, Karkat got exactly seven days to recover.

That week, watching and waiting for the souls to materialize fully, was the most painful time he could remember. Everyone was living together in the lab, deciding that returning to their hives would be too dangerous considering the circumstances. That meant that a plethora of tense trolls and humans were locked together in close quarters, and while some people seemed perfectly content to hang around and chat (Jade and Jake especially) and others made themselves scarce (Sollux, mainly), most of them just kind of hung around and waited in tense silence for the battle to arrive.

Around halfway through the week, Kanaya had decided that she wanted to meet with every individual group and discuss possible strategies. Naturally that meant that Karkat, Sollux, and Terezi were dragged along for the ride, seeing as they knew the most about their opponents.

They'd started with Tavros, which meant that Jake was dragged away from Dirk long enough to talk strategy.

"Tavros is a tricky one," Kanaya said, Jake fidgeting beneath her intense gaze. "He has mechanical legs, so there's no risk of him running out of stamina when he attacks. Be prepared for him to be abnormally swift, and be aware of the fact that he fights with a lance. He is capable of communicating with animals and ordering them to attack, so you should try to lure him to an open area with no wildlife if you can. He's a close range fighter, relatively speaking, so you would be wise to rob him of that advantage by attacking from far away."

Jake tried to smile, but it was shaky. He was obviously nervous about fighting again. "I can fire on him from long distance," he suggested, "while Karkat goes in and keeps him busy!"

Sollux snapped, "KK is _not—"_

But Kanaya beat him to it. "That's an excellent idea, Jake. Let's hope it works out that way."

And then he was sent out, and despite the glare being sent his way by Sollux, Karkat felt a swirl of hope that maybe he _would_ be able to participate in the fight.

After that, Kanaya called in Dirk to talk about Nepeta.

"Your task won't be easy," she cautioned. "Nepeta is a fierce fighter, and it will be tough to defeat her alone."

Dirk shrugged. "I can take her, I'm sure."

Kanaya narrowed her eyes. "Just be careful. Nepeta is known to attack with her claws, which will hopefully be easy for you to counter with your sword. Other than that, watch for her speed. You were chosen for this fight because Rose and I believe that you will be able to counter her with your ability to flash step, but you shouldn't underestimate your opponent. Be careful."

"Will do."

Next were Roxy and Terezi.

"You're facing a difficult battle, here," Kanaya said, expression grim. "Equius is incredibly powerful, but you have the advantage in that he is purely a close combat fighter. He attacks with his fists and his abnormal strength, so I advise that the two of you stay as far away as you can. Roxy, you would do well to fire projectiles at him as you did during our battle with the Condesce. Terezi, you're agile enough to keep him distracted and inflict what damage you can while Roxy fires from a distance. The two of you will be employing the same strategy as Karkat and Jake, but on a larger scale. Can you handle it?"

Roxy flashed them a thumbs up. "No worries, boss. Can do."

Terezi agreed with a smirk. "Of course. We'll take Equius down before he realizes what hit him."

Then they were gone, and Karkat's blood pusher lurched in his chest as John and Dave filed into the room.

Kanaya watched them, features drawn and tense. "Gamzee is incredibly dangerous," was the first thing out of her mouth. "Before we talk strategy, you need to understand that."

Dave gave a cool nod. "The guy took out Karkles. We know."

Karkat tried not to wince at the thought of Gamzee's attack. Now was _not_ the time to make himself look weak.

"Good," Kanaya went on. "In that case, we can continue. Gamzee's greatest asset is his overwhelming strength and brutality. He typically fights with jugglers' clubs, either using them to bash in the heads of his victims or throwing them to catch you when you're trying to run. No matter what happens, you _cannot_ let him get his hands on you. If he does, you're as good as dead."

John shuddered. "How should we fight him?"

"John, I would advise you to place great emphasis upon your control over the breeze. If you can unsteady Gamzee for even one moment during the fight, it may be the moment that means your victory. You should attempt to engage him in close quarters if you feel comfortable, but always make sure that you have room to fly away. Dave, the same goes for you. Get in close with your sword, but always leave yourself an out. Fight in an open area."

Dave shrugged. "Sounds good. Think we can handle that, John?"

"We'll have to," was the soft response. "Don't worry, Kanaya—we'll take him down before he can cause any serious damage!"

She dipped her head. "Thank you, John."

Then they were gone, sparing only small smiles for Karkat, and Jade was standing quietly before them.

"So," she said, "are you going to help me figure out how to fight Eridan?"

Kanaya exchanged sharp glances with the surrounding trolls. Karkat knew that she was worried about this particular battle, and she _should_ be. Eridan was a powerful beast, and Jade didn't have any way of directly deflecting his plasma attacks. It would be a tough fight, maybe the toughest.

"We aren't going to be of much help, I'm afraid," Kanaya said. "We can tell you that Eridan fights with a weapon known as Ahab's Crosshairs, and that it shoots out concentrated beams of plasma that can melt whatever they pass through. He's strictly a long-range fighter, and we're counting on your speed and ability to manipulate space to keep him busy. Quite frankly, we're not asking you to win—we're asking you to _distract_ him until we have enough people free to gang up on him."

Jade's features were tight. "So if I fail, my opponent will just wipe all of us out. Is that right?"

"Yes," Kanaya replied, "but that's true of all of us."

"More so for me, seeing as I'm the only one marking my target," Jade murmured. But then she brightened, saying, "No worries! I'll fly around and distract him the best I can."

Kanaya dipped her head. "Thank you, Jade. You'll be the first one to receive reinforcements, assuming that no one is wiped out unexpectedly."

Jade gave a nod of acknowledgement, and then Rose was taking her place as a part of the final team.

"So," Rose murmured, "I suppose this is where we decide what strategy we'll take."

"Yes," Kanaya responded. "I trust you're thinking along the same lines as myself?"

"I take long range, you take short?"

She smiled. "Exactly."

And just like that, all of their plans had been established.

"All of you should leave now," Rose suggested, turning to the other trolls. "Go to your teams and flesh out your strategy until you know it by heart. The battle will be soon, and there will be no room for mistakes."

The present trolls all murmured their agreement before beginning to disband, each heading to their respective teams.

 _There will be no room for mistakes,_ Karkat echoed silently. _In other words, there's a very real possibility that some of us won't come back from this battle—and everyone knows it._

For the first time in forever, Karkat felt like he _really_ had something to lose in a fight.

The thought was far from comforting.

†††

 **password?**

Seven days came to an end all too quickly.

"You guys!" Dirk yelled, barging into the hallway and making sure that everyone within a five-mile radius could hear him. "Guys, it's happening!"

Karkat's blood pusher fell into his stomach the instant he heard it. He'd been sitting with John in one of the spare rooms, curled up with him in an attempt to have one last feelings jam before the chaos hit. As Dirk's voice echoed down the empty hallways Karkat's eyes snapped to his moirail's, and he saw that John was feeling the same way he was.

"Guess this is it?" John whispered.

"Save it for when we're actually leaving," Karkat snapped, but his eyes were burning. "Come on, Egbert, let's get to the main room and see what Strider's blabbing on about."

The two of them got to their feet, untangling rather reluctantly and emerging out into the hallway. Some of the others were appearing from other rooms now, and Karkat dragged John along by the hand to make sure they weren't separated for a moment.

Dave and Sollux were snarling at each other on the right-hand side of the room, and Karkat immediately moved for them. John hissed something at them as Karkat watched the room fill with the rest of the humans and trolls, and the two immediately stopped snapping.

"Dirk?" Rose said, finally appearing as the last one absent from the room. "Is something going on?"

"It's time!" the human repeated, gesturing to the monitor set up specifically to track the heat signatures of the trolls. "I've been watching the monitor for hours, and the dots haven't flickered once. They're fully materialized, they have to be!"

"Are they converging on the lab?" Jade piped up. "Do you need me to manipulate space to get them away from us?"

"No," Dirk said, "they're not coming closer at all—in fact, they've spread out, and they haven't moved an inch. I think they're waiting for us."

Rose frowned. "They've chosen to fight separately? Why?"

"Maybe they think it'll give them an advantage," Dave shrugged. "Who cares? Let's go smash them."

"Just like that?" Roxy asked. "We just leave this place, go pulverize them, and come back here?"

"Ideally, yes," Rose said. "You have your assignments, you have your teams, and you have your strategies."

Everyone just stood there, uncertain. After a week of waiting, it was finally beginning to sink in that this was _happening._ The souls were out there, solid and tangible and no longer souls, and it was up to them to take them down. This was real. This was _real._

"Make sure your communicators are on and clipped to your ears before you go," Rose reminded them, seeming just as tense as the rest of them. "Don't use the channel unless absolutely necessary. In addition, remember that your phones can track the positions of the trolls, so you can check if you're growing too close to another group at any time. And lastly…" She trailed off, sweeping her gaze across all of them. "I shouldn't have to say this, but _stay alive._ Those of us who have reached god tier must remember how easy it is to be heroic, and check their motivation before doing _anything._ Fighting for yourself is not heroic, but the instant you start thinking about fighting to save the town, or to save someone you love, it's over. Don't let that happen."

It didn't exactly lighten the mood.

"Ready to go kick some ass?" Dirk batted at Jake's shoulder with stiff playfulness, an obvious attempt to overcome the dark atmosphere.

"Oh, I'm sure Karkat and I will be more than enough to take down this Tavros fellow!"

"Try to keep up with him, okay?" Dirk teased. Then he looked to Karkat, expression grim. "Keep each other safe."

Karkat nodded numbly. John, Dave, and Sollux still weren't happy that Rose and Kanaya had deemed him fit to fight—but they were letting him go, and that was a step in the right direction.

"I'll wait outside for you," Jake suggested, tailing Dirk as he headed for the door. "Come find me when you're ready."

Karkat nodded again.

"Well," Roxy sighed, "looks like we're next. Terezi, are you coming?"

The troll cackled, "You bet I am! I wouldn't miss this for the world." Then the two were strolling away, Roxy offering Callie a brief farewell as they departed. Jade was right on their heels, calling out a goodbye to her human friends as she up and flew from the room.

Rose took Kanaya's arm. "Shall we?"

Kanaya dipped her head. "On my life, you will survive this fight."

"And on mine, you will as well."

"Then we're on the same page."

Then they too were gone, Rose dipping her head to the five remaining people in the lab.

"I'm going to wait in the kitchen," Callie said awkwardly, sensing the tension that was thick in the air. "Sollux, you're free to join me when you're done." She left the room without a sound.

And then there were four.

Karkat looked at his quadrants, not quite knowing what to say.

"Well don't all trip over yourselves saying goodbye at once," Sollux snorted. He paced forward, reaching out to ruffle Karkat's hair. "Not like I'm in any danger or anything, so don't worry about me. Just take care of yourself, KK, and make sure you don't put yourself in unnecessary danger."

Karkat nodded his head, still stunned by the fact that this was _happening._

"Oh, for fuck's sake…" Sollux tapped him lightly on the cheek. "KK, snap out of it! You're about to go into battle, and this really isn't boosting my confidence that you're okay!"

He blinked once. Twice. Then he forced a scowl, stuttering, "I-I'm going to be just fucking fine, thank you. Now go make sure Callie's not burning down the kitchen."

Sollux scoffed, "Sure. Make sure I see your sorry ass again, got it?"

Then he was gone, and Karkat stared at the ground as John and Dave stared him down with equal reverence.

"So…" Karkat rasped. "Guess this is goodbye?"

John's expression crumpled, and he immediately wished he hadn't said it. "Yeah, um…I guess it is."

"Hey, _hey—_ " Dave's hands shot out, one settling on Karkat's shoulder, the other on John's. "Stop that, you two! We're going to live through this, and at the end of the day all of us are going to meet up right here and then we're going to go home and watch some crappy movies, and we're going to jumble into the same bed like some kind of friendship threesome and sleep this all off. Got it?"

Karkat thought he felt his blood pusher ripping itself into tiny shreds. "You'd better follow through on that promise, Strider. Because if you die, I will _personally_ fucking assure you that I won't let you rest in peace until you make up for it. Same goes to you, Egbert."

John nodded his head rapidly. "Y-yeah, okay. But only if you promise the same!"

"Don't worry," Karkat snorted. "If Idie, I'll haunt the shit out of you."

John sniffed.

"Oh my gog, don't start fucking crying! How are you going to fight Gamzee if your stupid glasses are fogged up?" Karkat pulled John's glasses off and wiped them on his shirt. There hadn't really been any moisture there; John hadn't gotten going yet—but the gesture made the human's lips curve upwards into a watery smile, and so it was worth looking a little stupid for a moment.

Dave groaned, grabbing John's glasses from Karkat and shoving them back onto his face. "You two are ridiculous, you know that? You're going to make my teeth rot out with how sappy you're being. Now hug and kiss and all that shit and let's get going!"

John laughed shakily, wiping away the few tears that had managed to escape. "Karkat…?"

"Just get over here, idiot," Karkat grumbled, extending an arm to his moirail. A moment later he found himself with an armful of John Egbert, the human pressing his face into his neck and babbling incoherently. "We'll be fine," he bit out, though it was becoming difficult to keep up his harsh exterior. His chest was aching. "Stop drooling on my shoulder and make Gamzee _pay."_

John drew back. His eyes were just a little bit red, teeth poking out in a wet but goofy smile. "We'll think of you while we're bashing his face in."

"You'd better." Karkat pressed a kiss to his moirail's cheek, then pushed him away. "Now get going."

He did. John pulled fully away and turned, casting one last look of concern over his shoulder, and then he was vanishing into the hallway to wait for Dave.

"Are you going to cry too?" Karkat quipped, eyeing his matesprit with a commendable attempt to keep his voice from shaking as his throat closed up.

"Nah, Striders are way too cool for that shit."

"And are you also too cool to kiss your matesprit goodbye before you gallivant right the fuck away to fight an incredibly dangerous battle?"

Dave shrugged. "Probably not. You'll have to come over here to find out for sure, though."

"You're still as much of a presumptuous ass as you've always been," Karkat growled. But he was stalking forward even as he said it, not stopping until he was pressed flush against the human, one arm curling around to tangle in the hair at the base of his neck. He gave that blond hair a tug, smirking as Dave hissed out a warning to be _careful_ with that, damn it!

Karkat chuckled. "Shut up and kiss me, Strider."

He did. He kissed him, and it was no less electric than the first time. Dave kissed him like he was the most beautiful creature in the world. He kissed him like touching him the wrong way would shatter him for good. He kissed him like the world was ending—and after today, it very well could be.

"I pity you," Karkat whispered, drawing back just far enough to stare up into the dark shades that always hid his matesprit's eyes.

"Yeah," Dave said. And then he reached up and took hold of his shades, and Karkat's blood pusher lurched as he was suddenly looking up into a pair of blindingly scarlet eyes. "I love you too, Karkat."

He stared, stunned. He'd never seen Dave's eyes before, and he'd almost given up hope of _ever_ seeing them. But now here he was, looking him square in the face, and he was _beautiful._

Dave cleared his throat, pushing his shades back up the bridge of his nose, and the sight was gone as soon as it had arrived. "I guess John's waiting for me, then."

"And Jake will be waiting for me."

"Right…" Dave adjusted his sunglasses again. He was nervous. "Hey, Karkat? Be careful."

He snorted. "I'm not the one fighting a murder clown."

"Doesn't mean I can't worry about you."

Another snort. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

Dave smirked at him. Then he was lifting off, cape flowing rather heroically behind him, and flying backwards towards the door. "Any last words?"

Actually, he had the perfect words. "Don't be a hero."

The smirk widened. "Will do, Karkles."

Then he was alone.

* * *

 _ **passw0rd?**_

* * *

Aradia could feel it. She could feel _her_ presence, the air spiking with frustration and malice as she fluttered through the most recent asteroid field she'd encountered.

 _Finally…I've found you. You're here._

"Vriska!" she called out for the hundredth, the _thousandth_ time, skirting the edges of the largest meteor yet and searching for the source of the malice.

For a single, heart-wrenching moment, there was nothing. But then…

"Hey! Hey, over here! Get me the hell off this thing!"

Aradia's blood pusher skipped a beat, and she took off in the direction of the voice. "Vriska, keep talking!" she called. "Lead me to you!"

"Keep talking? Oh, that's just perfect! Do you have any idea how long I've been yelling for someone, _anyone_ to figure out I was trapped here? I've been screaming my lungs out for _sweeps,_ and now here you are and you want me to _keep yelling?"_

She tracked the voice further into the field, darting around asteroids and dodging as one in particular nearly smashed into her side.

"I mean, it's not like I totally saved the universe or anything; _that's_ certainly not something that good ol' Vriska did for you saps! Not like I dropped everything and flew right the hell off to deal with some crazed _maniac_ of a green douchebag and smacked him right upside the head with some of that poetic justice that Terezi just _loves!_ Not like I—"

"Vriska!"

And there she was. Aradia rounded the final corner and gasped as the person she'd been searching after for _sweeps_ was suddenly standing right in front of her. Or rather, was suddenly sprawled out in front of her, collapsed across the face of an asteroid and very, _very_ stuck. She looked good, though—aside from the fact that her ankle was very solidly lodged into a crack in the giant rock she was lying on, she'd never seemed better.

"My, my," Aradia sighed, taking in her situation. "That explains why you were never drawn to the black hole."

"Megido! Can you stop talking and start _getting me out of here?"_

"Oh, of course." Aradia flew down and smashed the meteor in two with a solid blow, and Vriska's ankle popped free.

"Oh, thank gog I'm free!" She fluttered up, hands shooting down to rub at her bruised ankle. It was clear she'd been tugging at it for some time. "I swear, I've tried a thousand times to get myself out, but I've had the _worst_ luck in the entire universe since I was landed here! Every roll of the dice just produced some weak lackey that ran around for a while then got sucked away by the black hole. I screamed for ages, but you're the first person that's heard me!" Then she paused. "Wait, are you _alive?"_

Aradia gave a polite nod. "I am, yes. Sollux and I have been searching for you forever—but I sent him back to the new world just recently, so we're the only two living souls out here now."

"Is that so?" She released her ankle and righted herself. "Well you've found me now, so what exactly are we supposed to do? I don't suppose you know a handy way to just zap straight to the new world. Terezi must be going nuts looking for me; I should get back there right away."

"Reuniting with Terezi can wait," Aradia said. "I'm afraid that our friends have gotten themselves into quite a tricky situation, and your help is crucial to getting them out of it."

She quirked a brow. "Oh? And just what have those losers gotten themselves into without my brilliant leadership?"

Aradia hesitated, thinking of all the nonsense that their friends had been forced to endure. "It's…kind of a long story."

"No, really?" Vriska rolled her eyes.

"Yes, well…" Aradia pointed behind her, deciding, "I'll have plenty of time to explain on the way to the gateway to the new world. That is, if you're in the mood to come with me and save our friends."

"Are you kidding me?" Vriska adjusted her hood so it was pulled firmly over her head, horns jutting up like bright scars across the darkness of the void. "If it's a chance to get out of this dump, I'm in."

"Excellent. In that case, I suppose I should start at the beginning, should I not?"

Vriska drifted after her, wings aflutter. "Sounds good to me."

†††

\- apocalypseArisen [AA] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA] -

AA: sollux

AA: im not sure if you will receive this message in time seeing as i am so far away and we have already determined that the workings of outer paradox space often cause strange things to occur with our husktops

AA: however

AA: i still felt that i should message you and let you know that ive found her

AA: vriska is alive and well

AA: and we are on our way

\- apocalypseArisen [AA] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA] -


	23. Everybody: Strife!

**Chapter 23:** **Everybody: Strife!**

* * *

"Oh, there you are, good fellow! Are you ready to be off?"

Karkat nodded gruffly as he emerged from the lab. His eyes flitted this way and that in hopes of catching sight of his matesprit or his moirail, but it seemed that John and Dave had already dove into one of the nearby teleporters and disappeared to fight Gamzee.

"Karkat?" Jake pressed, and not for the first time Karkat marveled at how similar he looked to John. It was _scary._ "Karkat, are you ready to go? If you're having second thoughts, I'm sure I could manage to—"

"Don't lie to me, English," he snapped. "You're fucking terrified and you know it."

Jake shrank back. "W-well, um…"

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Let's just do this. I'm sure the others are already fighting."

"Well…it looks like Tavros is out in the middle of an open area to the north of the village. This teleporter here will be the most effective when it comes to getting us to our location, I do say!" He gestured to one of Jane's window-like devices. "After you!"

He wasn't sure if Jake was just really that scared, or if he was trying to be a gentleman. But either way, he clenched his teeth and padded towards the gaping portal in the ground. "You'd better not wimp out," he growled. "I'll be counting on you for long range support."

Jake laughed, but there was a hint of terror to it. "Of course not! I'm right behind you, Karkat!"

Not exactly reassuring, but it wasn't like he had much of a choice. "Okay," he breathed, checking that his communicator was clipped firmly to his ear and online, then making sure that his favored sickles were in the first slot of his strife specibus. "I'll see you on the other side."

Then he leapt, and he was met with the strangest sensation of being torn down molecule by molecule as he was thrown into the space between portals. It didn't hurt, didn't burn the way he expected it to. It was just _strange,_ and as he was forcibly reassembled on the other side and chucked back into the real world, he wondered exactly how _safe_ those things were.

Behind him he heard a dull buzz as the portal flared back to life, and one Jake English tumbled through to the other side. "Wow!" he gasped, turning on heel as if he couldn't believe he was there. "They work!"

"Of course they work, fuckass," Karkat grumbled. "You're the one with your phone out; where's Tavros?"

Jake eyed his phone, squinting at the tiny colored dots on the screen. "Hmm…well, if I'm reading this thing right, then he should be right around h—"

Gears ground in the space behind them. Someone snarled.

 _"English!"_ Karkat yelped, tackling him down a heartbeat before a lance ripped up the air where their heads had been a moment before.

"—right around _here,"_ Jake finished with a wheeze.

"You idiot, why didn't you _warn_ me he was so close to the portal?"

"It really didn't look like he was this close…maybe there's a margin of error in the program?"

"Take it up with Dirk later," Karkat snarled. Then he was staggering to his feet, righting himself as his sickles appeared with a flourish. "On your feet, moron! If you get caught off guard you're dead!"

Jake scrambled up behind him, a pair of brightly colored pistols appearing in his hands. "Right! You get in close, then, and I'll cover you from afar!"

Karkat raised his sickles. Tavros was still a ways off, another lance appearing in his hands as his mechanical legs bore him towards them. "Right—just watch out for his fucking lance!"

Jake tried to say something in response, but it was already too late. He flew back with a yelp as Tavros stabbed forward with his lance, landing on his feet a short ways back and dropping to one knee as he let off a barrage of bullets.

Tavros didn't appreciate that. He snarled, the fierce expression looking downright frightening on his gentle features, and drove his lance towards Jake as the bullets pinged off his metallic legs.

 _Oh no you don't!_ Karkat lunged forward and hooked his sickles around Tavros's lance, forcing the point of the weapon into the ground and giving Jake just enough time to scramble out of the way. "English, you can't shoot at his fucking legs! They're made of metal!"

"Oops!"

"Don't _oops_ me, you fucking—hey!" Karkat hissed as Tavros finally managed to wrench his lance free and barrel it straight into his side, the side of the weapon smashing him straight into the ground. "Just get back and do your job!"

He thought he heard Jake scrambling away to reach higher ground, but he couldn't be sure. He was too busy rolling to one side as Tavros stabbed the ground viciously where he'd been lying a moment prior, then followed it up with a crushing attempt to punch him in the face. Karkat swept a sickle in front of his face, and there was the satisfying sound of flesh tearing as Tavros screeched in pain.

"Aww, what's the matter?" Karkat sneered, pulling himself to his feet and flicking the blood off one sickle. "Purrbeast got your tongue, Nitram? Not in the mood to chat?"

Tavros shifted nervously. "I, um, don't have anything to say to, you."

Even when he was trying to sound menacing, he was still a complete joke. It was almost endearing, really.

"I'm, um, sorry about this. But you, have to die…? For some reason…"

Then Tavros was attacking again, using his lance as a battering ram as he swung for Karkat's ankles, then his ribs when he jumped to avoid it. _Fucking hell,_ that thing was hard to get away from!

For a third time he clawed his way to his feet, only for Tavros to swipe the tip of his lance across his stomach and send him crashing back to the ground. A harsh, mechanical foot planted itself right over the wound he'd just created and held him down. "Jake—!"

"I've got you!" Gunfire rang out, and the next moment Tavros shrieked as bullets riddled his thick skin, pelting at his arms, his shoulders, his chest. Troll skin was _thick,_ so the bullets couldn't do more than lodge themselves a sixth of an inch into their target, but it startled Tavros just enough for Karkat to hook a sickle around his ankle and throw him off.

"About damn time!" Karkat screeched, clutching at his bleeding stomach as he shot Jake a furious glare. The human had dashed to the most elevated position available on the flat plane (a rather convenient rock) and was aiming that pair of bright pistols right at Tavros's face.

"I don't want to hit you!" Jake called back. Then he appeared to panic, yelping, "Eyes on the battle!"

Karkat looked back just in time to catch Tavros's lance with his sickles and angle it towards the earth. "Fuck off for just _one second_ , Tavros, and let me _breathe!"_

Tavros responded by promptly punching him in the stomach.

 _"Fuck!"_

"Um, sorry!"

†††

Dave groaned, pressing a palm to his forehead as his body reassembled itself on the other side of the teleporter. _Wow…that fucking sucked._

"You made it!" John exclaimed, flying around him half-nervous, half-excited circles.

"Yeah, dude, I literally jumped into that weird window-portal thing two seconds after you did."

"Oh," John laughed sheepishly. "Guess you're right."

He rolled his eyes. "Now's _not_ the time to get all derpy on me, Egbert! We've got a killer clown to take out!"

"Y-yeah, I know that." He looked down, and his features were suddenly shadowed with doubt. "It's just…"

"You're worried about Vantas," Dave finished with a knowing glance.

"…Yeah. I'm worried about Karkat."

He was too. He really was. The thought of Karkat going to fight _anyone_ so soon after being forced out of a weeklong coma made his stomach churn. But now wasn't the right time to dwell on such things. "Just focus on the battle," he said. "Karkles is only a com message away, so we'll know the instant something goes wrong."

"Yeah, but he's on the opposite side of town. We couldn't be farther from him, and if something _does_ go wrong then we won't have time to get to him before it's too late."

That just made his stomach churn even more. "Jake is with him, and Dirk is nearby. He'll be fine."

John's brow furrowed. "Yes, but…"

"No buts, Egderp. _Focus."_

He blushed, murmuring, "Okay, yeah, I can do that."

"Good," Dave said with a nod. Then he was lifting off, phone in hand as he eyed the glowing indigo dot that was dangerously close to their current location. "Now, let's go clown hunting."

Gamzee had chosen to make his stand near the cliffs behind Karkat's house. It would be either incredibly good or damning for them—good because it would be easy for them to corner the troll between them and the cliffside, bad because it would be easy for the troll to corner _them._ Even with their ability to fly right out from under him, it was tempting fate to soar out over the water while Gamzee had those killer juggling clubs of his. One good thwack to the head would send them into the water, and who knew how many times they'd drown before they managed to get themselves to shore?

The dot grew closer. A low snarling growl was starting to echo through the trees, drawing them straight to Gamzee like a beacon.

"Remember," Dave hissed as they grew closer. "No matter what happens, _no_ heroic shit. If I'm about to die, I expect you to just _let_ me die so I can come back to life in peace, and I'll do the same for you. No jumping in front of blows or pushing each other out of the way or any of that garbage. Got it?"

John nodded with a shaky smile. "Got it! Don't be a hero."

The growling was louder now.

"Well, well, well, what are you little motherfuckers doing all up over my cliffside?"

Both of them practically jumped out of their skin as Gamzee appeared before them in a flash. He was backlit terrifyingly against the suns that were just beginning to slip towards the horizon, hair whipped up by the salty breeze and jutting out in odd directions. There were two juggling clubs held at his sides, one white striped red, one white striped green, and although they dangled limply the way he held himself was enough to let any onlooker know that he knew how to use them. Dave swallowed hard when he got an eyeful of the three scarred slashes curving across his face, then the way his horns caught the scarlet light just enough to give the illusion of being thoroughly bloodied.

 _This person is responsible for Karkat's condition,_ he reminded himself, and his sword was suddenly held aloft before him. "Makara."

"That's me all right! Are you scrappy little motherfuckers here to take me right the fuck out?"

John brandished his war hammer before him threateningly, though his eyes shone with trepidation. He could feel it too, then—the strange haze of terror that surrounded Gamzee. "You're the one that's been hurting Karkat. You sent him into that coma."

"You woke him up, didn't you? Up and ruined _all_ my motherfucking _miraculous_ plans." Gamzee was still. Unnaturally relaxed.

"That doesn't make it okay!" John protested. "You hurt him—and now we have to _make you pay."_

"That's upright kismesis talk right there, brother. You'd best be careful."

"I have a kismesis!" John snapped. "Or…I almost have one? I don't know, it's kind of—"

"The point is," Dave interrupted, stepping forward before John could really get going, "you have to pay. So sorry about this, but we have to take your fucking head off. Right now."

Gamzee's eyes sparkled. "Is that so?"

"Yeah." He pointed his sword at the troll. "It is."

"Aww, well that's just _all_ disappointing and shit! But I guess if you want to fight, I can motherfucking _fight."_

That was all the warning they had before a blur of movement streaked across their field of vision, a whirlwind of indigo and red and green and white taking up their vision.

 _Oh fuck,_ Dave thought. _This was a mistake._

But that was the only thing he had time to think before he heard John screaming in panic, and something cracked mercilessly across the back of his head and sent him sprawling into darkness.

†††

Rose cocked her head to one side as she took in her surroundings, breathing in the thick tang of salt in the air and listening to the dull rasp of the waves against the sand. "Very fitting," she commented, "for a seadweller to return to the sea."

Kanaya nodded silently at her side. Her chainsaw was already in her hands, though switched off as not to alert Feferi. The trackers said she was somewhere around their current location, which just so happened to be a part of the shoreline not too far off Karkat's house. They were close to Gamzee, Rose noted, but not so close that they should be alarmed. If John and Dave did their jobs well, there shouldn't be any problem.

"Where is she?" Kanaya asked in a low whisper. "The tracker says she should be here, but…"

Rose checked the tracker again, switching both wands to one hand in order to do so. "Hmm…perhaps we should move slightly to the east? I'm sure she must be—"

Kanaya stiffened suddenly, reaching out and sealing her hand around her matesprit's arm. "Rose!" she hissed, voice barely a whisper. "There!"

Rose crouched low to the ground in a heartbeat, Kanaya following suit. And with good reason, because _there she was._ Feferi Peixes, future successor to a dead Empire, was perched atop one of the rocks jutting out of the ocean. She hadn't seen them yet. Rather, she had her back to them, staring out blankly across the waves. A trident was clutched in one hand. A flicker of gold gleamed around her head in the form of a meaningless crown. Sticky, dark hair sprawled down her back, weighed down with salty sea spray.

"We have no cover on the open beach," Kanaya whispered.

Rose nodded. "Noted. We need to split up and come in from two angles. Do you think you can sneak around to the side and draw her attention? I'll blast her in the back the instant she turns for you, and hopefully that will be that."

"Hopefully," Kanaya agreed. "Let's do our best."

The troll practically vanished after that, disappearing along the beach. Her dark skin provided just a modicum of camouflage against the mud-brown sand, and the reddish light from the setting suns made it hard to see _anything,_ really. She should be safe.

Rose slipped into position at Feferi's other side once she was sure Kanaya was ready. Both wands were held aloft before her, ready to blast the former heir to the Empire in the back with white magic. If they could end this now, before Feferi had the chance to lash out even once, they could turn the tide of the battle before it ever started to push against them. Rose could go help Jade with Eridan, Kanaya could make sure that Dirk was handling Nepeta well…it would be a perfect victory.

But all those hopes were dashed when Feferi turned with lightning speed and hurled her trident straight at Rose's chest. The only thing that stopped her from taking her first death of the battle was flinging herself to one side, firing a blast of white magic that redirected the weapon _just_ enough to stop it from skewering her through the stomach.

Feferi's ear fins twitched. Then her eyes lit up and she called out, "Oh! Rose and Kanaya! I was wondering who would be sent after me, but this is just great!" She flicked her wrist, and another trident materialized in her hand with a flourish. "This is going to be _fun!"_

Rose severely doubted that. But still she looked to Kanaya, who was standing on the beach with her chainsaw poised to strike. The weapon roared to life with a low, rumbling purr.

 _Ready?_ she called silently, eyes finding Kanaya's from all the way across the beach.

Kanaya nodded. _Ready._

As one, they attacked.

†††

"Looks like it's time for us to start beating a dead horse," Terezi snickered, mechanical wings holding her above that awkward space where the trees started to bleed into the open plains behind John's hive. Equius was standing far below, a smudge of gray and candy corn orange against the half-dead grass of the prairie. Even from this height his eyes shone like gemstones, glaring up at them for all he was worth. If he'd ever learned to use a bow without snapping it, they'd be in quite a bit of trouble. Luckily he was just as useless long-range as he'd always been. "Roxy, are you ready to rock?"

The human nodded determinedly, grinding a fist into the palm of her opposite hand. "Let's take care of the horse man and go help Jade."

"Right." Terezi swooped up, cane detaching into twin blades. Then she turned, wings snapping close to her back, and dove for the earth below.

Equius received her with a snarl, fists whipping out and very nearly smashing straight into one of her wings as it flared out to catch her descent. "Terezi," he spat out. "You were a fool to come here."

She just smirked. "We'll see."

Then Roxy was behind her, blocky green constructs at her fingertips and ready to clobber one Equius Zahhak upside the head, and Terezi was launching at him blade-first, the stench of the blue blood running through his veins calling out like a beacon, and Equius was flailing at them with the force of a thousand trolls, fingers ready to rip and tear and curl into deadly fists, and everything just melded together into a whirlwind of chaos and blood.

†††

Jade wasn't one to consider herself as being overly smart, but there were a few things she was relatively certain of. One, this was a bad idea. Two, this was _definitely_ a bad idea. And three, most importantly, this was a really _,_ incredibly _, inexcusably bad_ idea _._

"Just you, then? Thought for shore they'd be sendin' somefin that's more of a challenge."

She gulped. Ahab's Crosshairs was pointed right at her head, and even from a good distance away it was terrifying. Yes, this was without a doubt the worst idea anyone had ever had. Who exactly had decided that sending her to face off against the homicidal fish troll was a good idea?

Oh, right—Rose. Rose had decided it was a good idea.

"Oh well," the troll— _Eridan_ , she remembered—drawled, finger resting lightly on the trigger. "Guess you'll be an easy one to krill, then I can go find Sol and wring his fuckin' neck for good this time."

Jade tried to say something, but her voice caught momentarily in her throat.

"Aww, look atcha. All shakin' in your boots. It's okay to run, angelfish. I won't hold it against you."

She clamped her teeth down on her tongue, anger flickering to life in the pit of her stomach. "I can't run!" She faced Eridan head on, no matter how much she was shaking, forcing her back to straighten fully. "My friends need me to beat you, and so I will!"

Eridan raised a brow. "Okay, darlin'. Take your best shot."

She did.

†††

And across the village, the last remaining member of their party faced down a villain of his own.

"Hey, you meanie! Stop swinging that sharp thing at me right meow!"

Dirk deflected Nepeta's attempt to scratch his eyes out with his katana, wincing as the sharp shriek of claws on metal pierced the still air. "Then stop trying to take my head off with those claws!"

Nepeta pouted, leaping backwards and landing with a dainty little sniff. "Aww, come on, I'm just trying to do my job! Gotta take out the bad guys and all that, right?"

Dirk followed her as she moved. He was fast, flash stepping this way and that and appearing behind the troll to flick out at her flesh with his blade—but _she_ was faster, if only just. She matched his every strike with a flicker of movement, slipping in between his blows and lashing out with claws sharper than the deadliest knife. Those claws already caught him several times, shrieking down his sides and over his shoulders and across his thighs—and he'd only been fighting for a few minutes.

 _This technique isn't working. I need some way to get the drop on her, to tire her out, to give myself an edge!_

Nepeta became a blur of movement, and the next moment Dirk was hissing in agitation as he moved just barely fast enough to avoid having his arm taken off.

"Almost had you!" Nepeta chirped. She blurred again.

 _Fuck, where'd she go?_ Dirk backed up into the small clearing offered by the surrounding forest. This was probably the absolute _worst_ terrain to fight the cat troll in, he recognized. It was all looming trees and shadows and undergrowth, perfect for flitting in and out of sight and darting around with incredible speed, for disappearing into the darkness and lashing out with quick, flickering strokes.

A fistful of claws caught him square across the back of the head, sending him crashing into the ground with a yelp. _Case and point._ But there wasn't much time to think after that, because he was rolling to one side desperately to avoid the claws that stabbed into the ground a moment later, katana sweeping out and managing to catch the troll on the wrist while she was trying to get her claws unstuck from the floor.

Dirk swung at Nepeta without thinking. She was unbalanced, center of gravity shifted—she _should_ have been easy to take down. But again she blurred, moving impossibly fast and disappearing into the trees, only to flicker back into sight and deliver a swipe to the ear that he _almost_ managed to avoid fully.

"Fuck!"

Nepeta giggled happily, and the flashing of olive eyes in the shadows was the only warning he got before it was happening again, claws swiping across his side, and then again, claws screeching off his katana and just catching the toe of one boot.

"Nepeta—!"

But she was already gone, melting into the shadows.

 _How the fuck am I supposed to take her down if all she does is attack and disappear? I need someone else here to help me hold her attention!_

Dirk's hand was at his ear a moment later, deflecting another one of Nepeta's slashes as he flicked the communicator to life, making sure he was connected to Rose.

"Rose!" he called through the deafening static. Looks like the thing didn't work so well long distance. "Rose, come in!"

There was a moment of silence. Then the static returned, this time accompanied by the sound of a chainsaw roaring and a hissing cry of pain, and Rose was responding, _"Dirk, what's wrong?"_

"Hey, uh—" He paused, getting a foot up to kick Nepeta into the ground as she came at him. His sword followed a moment later, but she was already gone. "Rose, I know that sending support for Jade is the top priority, but I could really use a hand over here if someone becomes available!"

There was another yelp, and this one was obviously Kanaya's. Her chainsaw stuttered briefly, then came booming back to life full force.

 _"I hear you,"_ Rose assured him, sounding only slightly breathless. _"No one's reported in yet, but I'll send you aid as soon as I can! Just hold out, Dirk—Jane's making her rounds soon, so she should be able to heal you! Just don't die! If you do, Nepeta will leave the area and attack someone else, and our whole plan will collapse!"_

 _Don't die._ He cringed, remembering that he was one of the unlucky ones that couldn't be brought back to life if he managed to die heroically out here.

 _"Kanaya!"_ Rose cried. Then, _"I've got to go, Dirk—hold your ground!"_

The earpiece fizzed out, and Dirk was left battered and overwhelmed as Nepeta slashed again and again at him, appearing and disappearing and reforming like smoke.

Blood spattered, a mixture of olive and scarlet, and he hoped desperately that he wouldn't be on his own for long.

†††

Tavros was the easiest target, Karkat remembered. _The easiest._

"Karkat!"

He yelped as Tavros turned his head and caught him in the forehead with one of those ridiculous horns, throwing him back and _down_ until he was striking the earth pan-first and letting the rest of his body follow his upper half until it slumped against the grass in its entirety. _Fucking ow!_

"Oh no—Karkat, get up!"

There was the sound of gunfire. Jake was moving again, firing with deadly precision as Karkat groaned and tried to stop the world from spinning. Jake couldn't take Tavros down like that, not with his thick skin, but it was enough to annoy the troll, cries of pain permeating the air.

"Karkat, come on—don't die!"

"I'm not _dying,_ you fucking moron!" He staggered to his feet, blood dripping down his face where Tavros had gashed it open with his horns. His pan was still spinning, a nauseous feeling was building in the pit of his stomach, but he couldn't stop. Jake couldn't win without him.

"Oh no, you're bleeding a lot!" Jake gasped, sounding rather shaken. "I can call Jane and—"

"Wounds to the pan always bleed heavily!" he snapped. "Focus on winning; we can call Jane when we really need her!"

"But—!"

Karkat didn't hear the rest. He was too busy leaping back as Tavros charged him with his lance, which was spattered with droplets of candy red liquid. Metal ground on metal with an ear-piercing shriek as Karkat flung the point away from himself with his sickles. _Oh my gog, I'm totally about to throw the fuck up right now; I can't handle seeing all this blood. Fuck!_

"Jake!" he ground out, rubbing one eye to get the blood out of it. "We need to end this!"

He didn't give the human the chance to respond. He just slashed, sickles blurring together as he put his all into getting rid of Tavros before he could _really_ do some damage. One strike batted away the lance, the other tore along his shoulder, a third raked across his collarbone and flayed flesh from bone. Tavros screeched beneath the attack, writhing backwards and kicking out blindly, catching Karkat around the horn with one of his flailing punches and knocking him back.

Jake seemed to have got the message, at least. As Karkat righted himself a spray of bullets found their way through, striking Tavros and distracting him just enough to put him at a disadvantage.

 _The tide turns now._

Karkat lashed out with a roar. His stomach and head were still oozing blood, but the cuts were shallow; he would be fine once Jane arrived and healed him. For now he was more than strong enough to stomp his foot down on Tavros's newly recovered lance and hold it there as he whipped forward with brutalizing force. He hissed in victory as he felt his sickles rip through the troll's stomach, not quite as deep as he would have liked, a fountain of brown blood spraying into the open air. He swung again, this time aiming for the throat—but Tavros was tugging on his lance, then, unbalancing him and forcing him to stagger back or be impaled.

"Door's open!" he called back to Jake. "Aim for the wounds in his stomach!"

"Right!" Jake started firing again, and this time Tavros _screamed_ as the bullets hit home. Without the protective barrier of his thick Alternian skin, the little bits of metal were able to pierce right to his core and lodge there.

Karkat kicked the lance out of the troll's hand while he was still screaming. "Nothing personal, Nitram. I just have to take you _right_ the fuck down." He clawed like a wild animal with his sickles, slashing at Tavros's stomach as his screeches continued to grow in volume, slashing upwards to his throat as warm, sticky blood flooded the air with the salty tang of copper. He moved like a hurricane, all sharp edges and flickers of steel and wide eyes as Jake peppered every wound he tore open with bullets. He didn't stop, digging his sickles into Tavros's body the way a cat would dig its fangs into the throat of its prey, latching on and refusing to let go even as Tavros cried out and writhed and did everything in his power to throw him off. A symbol glowed at his forehead, no doubt a sign that he was attempting to call creatures to his aid—but there were none around, and so nothing happened as Karkat followed his victim's descent to the earth and crashed down with him, the knees of his pants soaking in the cooling blood that was still far too hot. Tavros was only twitching slightly now, making light, whimpering noises as he struggled for breath.

 _Almost over._ Karkat leaned back, wincing at the feel of blood on his face and chest as he raised both sickles and _tore_ them as hard as he could across Tavros's throat, a cruel mockery of how Nepeta had killed that first prospitarian.

Tavros gurgled out a weak cry, brown fountaining from his throat with every pump of his blood pusher, and was still.

"Is it over?" Jake called, and there was the sound of scrambling as he came down from his perch and ran for the downed troll. "Is he down?"

Karkat observed their handiwork with grim satisfaction. Tavros's limp form twitched beneath him, so mangled and covered with blood that it was barely recognizable. Karkat's sickles had flayed every inch of flesh on his front half, gray skin hanging limp and tattered, head nearly separated from his shoulders with the force of that final blow. His eyes were dull, and as Karkat watched, his chest stuttered to a halt.

It was only then that he allowed himself to laugh. It was a high, desperate sound, because _holy fuck_ he had just _slaughtered_ Tavros Nitram. "Yeah," he choked out, "this one's over."

"Oh, thank goodness!"

Karkat winced as he climbed off of Tavros's body. His stomach burned from the slash the other troll had placed there, and his pan felt fuzzy and painful, and all his various cuts and scrapes pulsed out light dribbles of blood as he moved. _Not deadly. Just needs healing._ "I'm going to send out a signal and let everyone know we're done here," Karkat said, raising a hand to the communicator at his ear.

"Do you think they'll send us to a new battle site?"

"There's no doubt of that," he snorted. Then he fiddled with his earpiece a bit, and suddenly there was a flood of static. He was connecting with Jane and Rose only, not wanting to distract the others.

"Jane, Rose," he bit out, "Tavros is down."

 _"Down already?"_ Jane came in. The sound of wind whipped through the earpiece, suggesting she was already flying in their direction. _"I'll be at your location soon."_

 _"Yes,"_ Rose agreed. _"Jane, after you've healed Tavros I expect a report on whether or not our theory was correct. After that, I'll send all of you off to another battle site."_

 _"Good call,"_ Jane said. _"Karkat, Jake, stay put until I can get there and bring Tavros back to life. We think that dying and being brought back will reset his brain, but we're just not sure! If I bring him back and he starts attacking again, you need to be there to take him down a second time."_

Karkat shuddered at the thought of having to slit Tavros's throat again. But still he agreed, "We'll be waiting." Then he disconnected from the conversation and sat down hard, stomach burning just enough to be irritating, pan throbbing just enough to be noticeable.

"Are you okay?" Jake asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," snapped. "Or at least, I _will_ be once Jane gets rid of this fucking gash in my stomach and the hole being torn straight through my pan."

A flash lit up the sky. Then Jane was there, trident in hand, flying to them with an expression of alarm. "Karkat, Jake! Are you guys okay?"

"Oh, hello, Jane!" Jake called, moving to greet her as she landed. "Heh…things turned into a bit of a mess here, but I think we're mostly okay. Karkat could use some healing, though."

Jane wrinkled her nose as she surveyed the scene. "Yes, I can see that. Karkat, hold still—I'll take care of that for you before I bring Tavros back to life."

Karkat did as she said, removing his hands from the wound and watching as she knelt and sent a gentle pulse of healing magic through his torso, then his head. The effect was immediate, and he could feel the instant his skin started to knit itself back together, sealing up as if it had never been split. The pain was washed away in an instant.

"Thanks," he murmured, pressing a pair of fingers to his forehead to make sure the gash was really gone. "Tavros next, right?"

Jane nodded. "Stand back, you two. I think this will work, but we can't be sure." She drifted to Tavros's side, visibly fighting to hold back a gag as she extended her hands and allowed them to hover just above the troll's limp body. There was a flash of light. A pulse of energy. A flicker of life. Then Tavros's wounds were sealing shut, the blood burning away into nothing, and even his _clothing_ was stitching itself back together as his entire body jolted with a gasp.

Then it was over.

Tavros just lay there, panting and staring up at the sky with a downright bewildered look on his face. His lance rested on the ground at his side, and even though his eyes flickered to it briefly, he made no move to pick it up. That was a good sign.

"Nitram," Karkat called from a safe distance, "are you okay? Is your pan on straight?"

The troll shifted as if in a dream. His head rolled to one side, eyes dull and confused as they sought out the source of the sound. "Karkat…?"

Well, he didn't seem aggressive.

"Looks like it worked, Jane!" Jake chirped, flying in little self-satisfied loops.

"It did!" Jane cheered, even as Karkat darted to Tavros's side and helped him sit up.

"Easy there," Karkat murmured. Tavros was shaking against him like a leaf, though, and didn't seem to want to listen. "You just died, fuckass—so just relax for a moment and let yourself recover!"

Tavros just shook his head, eyes wide and confused. Did he even remember what had just happened?

"I'm going to patch Rose in," Jane announced. "I'm sure you're needed elsewhere."

Karkat felt a spark in his ear, and then Jane was talking.

"Rose, it worked! Tavros is alive and well, and Karkat and Jake are fine too! What should we do next?"

 _"Excellent! Hang on, I'm going to get the others online."_ A pause. Then, _"Okay, everyone—we've learned that our strategy will work. If we can kill the trolls and get Jane to them, when they're brought back they will_ not _be aggressive!"_

 _"Really?"_ John gasped. _"That's great!"_

 _"Yeah, real fucking great!"_ Dirk snapped. _"Now can I get some help over here?"_

"I can help you!" Jake chimed in immediately. "Oh—I mean, if _you_ don't need any help, Jade!"

Jade's voice was strained when she responded. _"Can't lie, I need a little help! But Karkat, Jake, I don't think you two can help much here!"_

 _"Agreed,"_ Dave snapped, sounding tense. _"Karkat, if you even_ try _to go and fight Eridan, I will personally come over there to kick your ass into next week!"_

 _"And Jake, if you try to fight the guy I'll abandon Nepeta just to punch you in the face!"_

"Geez, okay!" Jake yelped. "I get it, we're not on his level!"

 _"You're not,"_ Rose agreed calmly. _"But that doesn't mean you can't help. Jake, help Dirk for the time being. Karkat—"_

 _"Careful,"_ Dave growled.

 _"—Karkat,"_ Rose continued with a huff, _"I want you to stay put with Tavros."_

His head snapped up, glaring at nothing. "What? Why the fuck am I staying here?"

 _"You're not strong enough to take on anyone else right now, not after that coma."_

"But—!"

 _"Just hold your position until further notice! This is a battle, there isn't time for arguing! When the time comes, I'll contact you and tell you where to go."_

Karkat was sorely tempted to argue. But with Tavros shaking lightly in his arms and Jake giving him that helpless expression (the kid looked way too much like John for his tastes _, fuck)_ he had no choice but to agree. "Fine. Just make it quick!"

 _"Understood."_

Then the com went dead, and Karkat was left with an armful of Tavros and a blood pusher full of rage and irritation.

Jake's nervous circling drew to a halt. "Well, guess I should be off! Jane, care to join me?"

She nodded. "I'll check on Dirk, then move on to Roxy and Terezi with Equius. Karkat, will you be okay here?"

"I'll be fine," he growled. "Just go!"

They did, and he glared after them furiously as they left him behind like a useless wriggler.

†††

Dave's head spun as his vision slowly started to fade back in. _Fuck…what happened to me?_

"Dave! Dave, come on, please tell me that wasn't somehow heroic!"

He groaned as John's voice pierced straight through to his core, grating against his every nerve as it made its way inward. Something pinged at the back of his mind. A memory, brief and fleeting.

Then he heard Gamzee roar, and it all came rushing back.

"Hey, I could really use some help here once you're done being dead!"

His eyes snapped open with a gasp, just in time to see Gamzee catch John in the shoulder with a club and send him spinning through the air. _God,_ he thought, _I'm such a loser. Dying the instant the battle starts?_

 _"Dave!"_

Okay, he should probably get up and help the guy.

John yelped, and Dave lurched into action.

"Oh, you're up!" John exclaimed, flitting to one side as one of Gamzee's clubs splintered the earth at his feet. "Good—now help!"

Dave blinked repeatedly, taking in the scene before him. He couldn't have been out for long; John only had a few scrapes on him, and only a small amount of indigo blood was splattered across Gamzee's clothing, so they couldn't have been clawing at each other for more than a few minutes.

Gamzee roared again. He was lashing out with his clubs, lumbering and lurching and looming high above, horridly fast despite his size and apparent clumsiness. John was quick, though—he dove beneath the blows and swung his war hammer with all his might, battering Gamzee with surprising strength. John was strong. Gamzee was stronger.

Dave was shaken out of his stupor when Gamzee, noticing that he was standing again, send him a vicious snarl, club rising above his head.

 _Oh, fuck._ Dave just barely managed to dodge the club that was chucked his way, which easily would have sent him right back into the clutches of death for a second time had it made contact. Briefly he marveled at the fact that John hadn't been taken down yet, that he'd been swift enough to dodge the strikes—but then he was pulled back to the real world as another club popped into Gamzee's hand, and his sword held up before him the instant Gamzee tensed in preparation to lunge at him.

"Oh no you don't!" John swooped down before Gamzee could charge and batted him over the head with his hammer, drawing his attention and giving Dave the time he needed to finish getting his head on straight.

 _Right._ Dave tightened his grip on his sword, fighting down the fleeting fear of being killed again. _Guess it's time to take down a killer clown._

John's eyes glimmered with excitement even as he dodged a fierce swipe of claws. He was thinking the same thing.

They didn't need to talk about what they did next. It was instinctual, John stirring the wind up around Gamzee and darting this way and that like a fly, drawing his attention incessantly and luring him closer to the edge of the cliff, weaving in and out of the clubs being chucked his way only for new ones to take their place a moment later. Gamzee was distracted, snarling in the midst of a hurricane created by a scrawny human boy that he couldn't seem to hit. And Dave…

Dave was right behind him. _Literally_ behind him, sword hefted up with both hands as he whipped towards Gamzee, prepared to stab him straight through the chest. This fucker was responsible for Karkat's pain, and he was going to _pay._ They were going to _make_ him pay.

John heard him loud and clear. He tore into Gamzee with a blast of wind, unbalancing him just slightly just as Dave aimed to put the point of his sword straight through his heart.

Gamzee had other plans.

Namely, he had the plan of letting himself drop like a ragdoll, flopping to the ground just long enough to let Dave stab out, overextending himself and leaving his chest wide open for a set of wickedly sharp claws to rake down. Gamzee latched onto him like a leech, clubs vanishing into nothing as he took to sinking in his claws and hanging right the fuck on, even as Dave screeched and struggled to draw back. And that, he soon realized, was a _really fucking bad idea._ Gamzee was stronger than him, so when he leaned back the troll's claws just _tore_ down his torso, only releasing when they caught on his waistband and nearly tore through that, too.

"Oh, no—Dave!" John was there in a heartbeat. His hammer was gone into his sylladex, fingers digging into Gamzee's shoulders and throwing him back and _down._ Gamzee was strong but unbalanced, and John almost managed to land a blow while he was struggling not to topple over. _Almost._

The front of his shirt was already soaked, but he thought that it didn't really matter. This wasn't heroic, it was fucking _stupid_. If he died now, he'd be back on his feet in a few minutes, and the only risk would be leaving John alone long enough to resurrect. Still, it wasn't a risk he wanted to take. He would hold on for as long as he could.

John was still grappling with Gamzee, practically dragging the troll into a wrestling match and beating his head into the ground as often as he could in between taking fistfuls of claws to the stomach.

 _Shit! Both of us can't go down at the same time or it'll all be over!_

Without thinking, Dave flash stepped to the pair of writhing bodies and separated them with a harsh yank. His blade was flashing out in an arc to follow his hands a moment later, and he actually managed to slash Gamzee across the chest, though the wound was shallow and all it did was make the troll roar in anger. John was there, though, hammer in hand, ready to catch that anger and direct it back from whence it came in a flurry of movement—and Dave was right behind him again, flying at Gamzee with the force of a battering ram and slamming his shoulder right into his slashed stomach, knocking him back towards the cliff.

"Nice!" John cried triumphantly, but Dave's mind went blank with pain as the claw marks in his chest throbbed and drooled blood. But he couldn't stop, not now, and so he slashed again, then again, and Gamzee's clubs were back in his hands then, knocking his sword away and jabbing up under his chin and sending him staggering backwards. Another strike followed, this one aimed at his head, but a gust of wind knocked him out of the way.

John smashed his feet into Gamzee's chest in a ridiculous sort of sideways flying kick, and the troll staggered backwards another few steps with a pained hiss. The drop off that cliff was _massive._ If they could just get the troll to slip over it…

"Are you tryin' to get me to up and step over that motherfucking cliff right there, motherfuckers?"

Dave gritted his teeth. He couldn't stand to hear that voice, not knowing that it was the voice that had pushed Karkat over the edge. A pulsing was starting up in his chest, beneath the pain of being cut and the pain of being battered with a pair of bloodied clubs, and it was beating out a horrible rhythm of _make him pay make him pay make him pay._

Gamzee laughed, and it came out as more of a roar. "Oh, you're _real_ motherfucking mad, aren't you, brother? Mad about what I did to Karbro."

A flood of hatred overtook him, white-hot and coiling, and he lunged for Gamzee with a roar of his own. The troll was ready for him, though, had been _goading_ him, and the next moment there was a pair of clawed hands around his shoulders, flinging him off the edge of the cliff so abruptly that he forgot he could fly for a moment. A club followed, one that slammed into his torn stomach with brutalizing force and ripped the skin wide open.

Fortunately, that meant that Gamzee had his back turned to John.

John didn't waste time. He surged forward with a vengeance and _swung_ with all his strength, hammer blasting into Gamzee's back so hard that a ring of wind rippled out from the impact like the effect of a stone dropping into a puddle. And Gamzee just staggered, held slightly off balance, but not enough so that John's follow-up strike managed to get him on the ground. He turned, _way_ too fucking agile for a gigantic clown troll, and wasted no time in flailing his juggling club at John's face. He missed, thankfully—but what he _didn't_ miss was John's shoulder, which made a horrifying cracking noise even as he let out a shriek of pain.

 _No!_ Dave swooped in to claw at Gamzee's back as John went down hard. The troll just cackled, though, and one sturdy fling was all it took to send the weakened Knight to the ground beside his partner. _Fuck, no—we can't both die at once like this!_

Gamzee swung, eyes wild and furious, clubs cleaving the air with incredible strength. It would have killed them both, Dave _knew_ it would have—but John was a brilliant fighter, even doubled over and in pain, and a flick of his wrist hefted Dave out of the way and just barely let him avoid the attack himself.

And then they both jumped as their earpieces buzzed.

The conversation was a blur. Dave barely had time to track the thing, limbs beginning to feel like jelly as blood loss took its toll. John seemed only marginally better, offering weak words of encouragement when Rose asked if anyone needed help. They did need help. They _did._ But everyone else was holding their own just barely, and Jane absolutely _had_ to go to Tavros to revive him and get him back on their side, and so they had to hold out. They'd be healed once they died and came back, anyways—they just had to make sure that only one of them was down at a time, or Gamzee would go off in search of other victims while they tried to resurrect.

There was one thing he could be happy about, he supposed. Karkat was safe. He was just hanging around, waiting to be directed into the next fight, and Dave was sure as hell glad that he wasn't being sent to _this_ one. Karkat couldn't be brought back if he died, and Gamzee was _strong._

Gamzee's voice rang out, breaking Dave out of his thoughts. "Aww, what's this? Are you ignoring me, motherfucker? All up and pretending that I'm not even here? Now that just hurts the motherfucking feelings, you know?"

He moved impossibly fast, and John choked out a sound of alarm as one of the troll's clubs jabbed into his chest, then whipped around to crash into the side of his head. He crumpled like a ragdoll and was still.

"John!"

Gamzee chuckled. "There we go…and if I can just get you off my motherfucking back too, wouldn't that just be the biggest fucking miracle?"

Dave backed up, sword held protectively before him. _Have to make it until John gets back._

"Now…" Gamzee's eyes flashed. Had they always been so dark, so sunken, so _vicious?_ "How about we wrap this little dance right the fuck up?"

* * *

 _ **pASSWORD?**_

* * *

When Jake finally reached Dirk's side, Jane flying close behind from the nearest teleporter, he was nearly driven to tears by the sight before him.

"Oh no!" Jane cried. "Dirk, hang on—I'll help you!"

Dirk choked out a gurgling cry of protest, eyes wide as he tried to shoo them off. His shades were _gone,_ Jake saw. Nowhere to be found, and he hadn't pulled a spare out of his sylladex. He probably didn't have the strength, seeing as every inch of him was lacerated horribly. It was a miracle he was still on his feet, considering the amount of scarlet splattering the forest floor. Nepeta was here somewhere, they all knew it—but she was staying hidden, no doubt waiting to see who had just crashed her little party.

Jake darted to his boyfriend's side as Jane knelt close by, taking a wide stance and aiming his pistols out at the forest for when Nepeta inevitably decided she could take them. He felt the calming aftershocks of Jane's healing magic roll through the clearing, and the next moment Dirk was choking on nothing as his lungs started working again.

"Thanks," he rasped, and when Jake looked at him again, he'd snatched another pair of shades out of thin air and shoved them onto his face. "Was about to go down, there."

Jake kept his guns trained on the forest, but internally he wanted nothing more than to throw his arms around his idiot of a boyfriend. _Dirk was about to die. I-I mean, he would have resurrected, and it would have been fine but…_

"Jake is here to help you now," Jane said firmly. "Now take Nepeta down, and I'm going to check up on Roxy and Terezi next!" She was gone in a heartbeat, flying off in the direction of the nearest teleporter, and Dirk and Jake were left alone.

"So…" Jake whispered, eyes flitting this way and that in a fit of nervousness. "Where is she?"

Dirk straightened. His wounds were all sealed now, blood burned out of his hair and off his clothing, and his katana flickered up to stand in front of his face as he put his back to Jake's. "Don't know," he murmured. "Hiding, probably. Waiting."

Jake pricked up his ears, listening. He was hoping to catch a whisper of movement, the rustling of leaves, the rasp of cloth brushing against tree bark. But there was nothing, and Dirk's complete silence suggested that he was having just as much luck with locating their opponent.

"She's here," Dirk insisted in a low growl. "When she lunges at us, I want you to draw back and fire. She'll go for my back and try to latch on, so you should have a broad target."

He gulped. If he missed Dirk would die, and _he_ would be next.

"I hear her now," Dirk breathed. Tension was written in every line of his body, and his katana was tracing back and forth along an invisible line as he tracked whatever he was hearing.

Jake couldn't hear a thing. That is, until Nepeta appeared out of nowhere, and she was the only thing he _could_ hear.

"It's mean to bring your nasty human friends into this!" she hissed, dropping down out of nowhere and going for Dirk's eyes. Only a quick sidestep stopped the troll from taking his vision, and Jake was already firing as Nepeta squawked and tried to hide behind Dirk.

 _It won't be enough,_ he realized, watching the way the bullets stuck only a few centimeters into Nepeta's skin, barely drawing out her olive blood. He remembered his fight with Tavros, and how Karkat had slashed away the protective barrier of their enemy's skin before bullets could really affect him. "Dirk, old chum, I need an opening!" he called. "The skin is too thick to get through with these bullets; they're meant for humans!"

"Jake," Dirk gasped, thrashing as Nepeta went for his back, just like he'd said she would, sinking her claws into his shoulders and holding on for dear life like a big cat clinging to the throat of its prey. "Dude, just _shoot!"_

Panicked, he did as bidden. He unloaded the contents of his weapon straight into Nepeta's back, only slightly concerned with the fact that if she jumped off he'd be firing at Dirk. Nepeta for her part yowled in pain as she was struck, but did nothing else. Her claws remained lodged in Dirk's shoulders, teeth snapping dangerously close to his neck. Olive blood was soaking into her shirt and running down in rivulets, each bullet cutting her wider open, but it wasn't _enough._

"Dirk—!" he cried, but he was cut off in a gasp a moment later as Nepeta took Dirk to the ground, and there was _nothing he could do_ but fire continuously, cursing the fact that he didn't have a single melee strife specibus, let alone a weapon with which to _use_ said specibus. He switched out his twin pistols for a regular handgun and continued firing. All he could do was pump the troll full of lead and _pray_ that either she went down or Dirk threw her off before those claws got to his throat.

"Fuck!" Dirk yelped. "Jake, please!"

"I'm trying!"

Nepeta growled, deep and low in her throat, but it was a gurgling sound that definitely had a hint of olive to it. _Do we almost have her?_ Jake pulled the trigger again, then again, becoming less concerned with hitting Dirk and more concerned with hitting Nepeta.

Nepeta gasped, blood spurting from her lips. Troll skin was tough, but it seemed that even the thickest material could be worn down if you just shot at it enough. He'd hit a lung, it looked like, and the oliveblood was struggling to hold on. Dirk was fighting, too, katana lying abandoned beside him as he tore at Nepeta's hands with his blunt nails, rolling and kicking and biting desperately as those claws tried to hook into his throat. They were becoming a blur of movement, and Jake had to concentrate hard as not to hit his boyfriend.

He fired again. Once, twice, three times—and then Nepeta was gasping and falling away, claws horrifyingly bloodied and dripping scarlet onto the grass, eyes wide and shocked. She recoiled, managing to push off Dirk's body and get to her feet, staggering wildly as blood sprayed the trees around them. She was obviously trying to retreat, to disappear up into the trees and take a few moments to recover. But she was too badly injured, and Jake's gun was already trained on her, and he pulled the trigger as many more times as it took for some of those bullets to find their way to her skull and split it open, lodging in her brain and shutting her down for good.

"She's down!" Jake gasped. "Hey, we—oh no, _Dirk!"_

He scrambled to his boyfriend's side and dropped to his knees, hands already moving in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood lurching from his neck. "Oh, no—on no, what can I do?"

"Call Jane," Dirk gurgled. "I'll resurrect in a few minutes, just get her here to heal Nepeta!"

Jake shook his head, flabbergasted. "But then you have to die, and I don't…how can you possibly be okay with _dying?"_

"Done it before," he managed, voice thick with scarlet. "Call Jane, _now."_

He worried at his lip with his teeth, eyes burning. Dying shouldn't have been a big deal to them. They could come back as long as they weren't killed in a heroic or just way, after all. But still…he remembered dying. He remembered, and it was a horrible, choking sensation of fear that started in the chest and worked its way up then down, and the thought that Dirk was going to feel it _again_ was making it hard to breathe.

"Idiot," Dirk spluttered. "You're not the one dying."

"But—!"

"Jane," his boyfriend reminded him in a low growl. And then he was convulsing in small, violent spasms, blood pushing past his lips as he shook lightly on the ground and went limp.

He stared in horror at Dirk's motionless body, feeling that familiar sensation of panic beginning to cloud his mind. But then he was jolting into action, remembering that getting Jane back here had to be his top priority, and he raised a hand to his ear and sent out a message to Jane, then Rose.

"Nepeta is down, and Dirk is reviving!" he reported, fighting the tremor in his voice. "Jane, my friend, I need you here as soon as possible—and Rose, if you would be so kind as to assign Dirk, Nepeta, and me to another target once we confirm that all is well, that would be fantastic."

There were responses then, but he barely heard them. Jane appeared soon after that, breathlessly reporting that she had to go back to heal Jade as soon as she was done here. She stepped right over Dirk's body and took only a moment to send a pulse of healing magic into Nepeta, and a heartbeat later the troll was opening her eyes with a raspy purr.

"Oh…" she sighed. "Oh gosh, my head is all foggy!" She blinked, olive eyes wide and confused. "Where am I right meow?"

Jane was already heading to the teleporter and jumping into it, nodding to Jake as she vanished.

"Nepeta?" Jake asked, inching closer slowly for fear that the troll would attack him in her disoriented state. "Can you hear me?"

She slowly pushed herself into a sitting position. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Hello there!"

Not aggressive, then. That was good. "Hey," he greeted. "How much do you remember?"

She stuck her tongue half out in the most adorable manner, then, reminding him of a kitten. "Hmm…I remember that something was really wrong, and I was fighting some people because I thought I was supposed to kill them, but…then I died?" Then she chirped, "Wait, I remember—you killed me!"

Jake recoiled, afraid that she would attack her murderer.

"Huh? Why are you running away?" She paused. "Oh, are you afraid that I'm going to attack you? That's silly, silly! I was being a real meanie, so you had to put me down like the bad kitty I was!"

He blinked. "I suppose that's…one way of looking at it?"

Nepeta pushed herself to her feet and shook her head, straightening her hair in a messy sort of way. Then she saw Dirk, and her eyes widened. "Oh no, I killed him!"

"He'll be fine," Jake explained. He was starting to smile again, seeing how cheerful Nepeta was. He liked her, he thought. "He's resurrecting right now, so he should be back on his feet right in a moment."

Dirk groaned as if on cue.

"See? Good as new."

Dirk pushed himself up shakily, but apparently decided to remain sitting for a moment as his head spun. "Fuck, dude…not cool."

"I'm sorry!" Nepeta wailed. "I really don't think I wanted to kill you, it was just something I was supposed to do! But I'm all better now, so don't worry about a thing! I won't attack you again, I promise!"

Dirk raised a brow. "You sure about that, kitty cat?"

"Positive!" Nepeta bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, and her blue fabric tail almost looked real as it swished in the breeze. "But you need my help, don't you? There are a whole lot more baddies to take down!"

"Yes," Jake agreed, "but are you sure you're already feeling up to going after someone? These are your friends you'll be fighting, even if they're temporarily out of their minds!"

Nepeta just grinned cattishly. "Oh, it's no problem! My meowrail is out there somewhere, and I'm going to use all my feline wiles to get him back!"

"I thought it was _feminine_ wiles," Dirk muttered, but no one paid him any mind.

Jake raised a hand to the communicator at his ear. "Rose, we're ready for our assignments! Nepeta would like to go to Equius, if that's okay."

He waited. Waited more. But Rose didn't respond, and when his earpiece buzzed to life, it was a very different voice coming through.

 _"Rose is resurrecting, so I'm in charge of assignments while she's busy being dead, got it?"_

Jake blinked. "Sollux?"

 _"Don't take that tone with me! I have a giant fucking monitor displaying the positions of everyone on this gogforsaken planet, so I'm more than qualified to make strategic decisions!"_ There was the sound of a keyboard tapping, and suddenly the troll was broadcasting to everyone _. "Listen up, you miserable lot! I'm making some changes to the roster on Rose's behalf. Dirk, Nepeta, you two are going for Equius. Dirk, you can figure out where he is for yourself and get there without me holding your hand. Jake, you're on Eridan."_

 _"What?"_ Jade and Jake gasped in unison.

 _"Look,"_ Jade insisted, _"I really don't think that's a good—!"_

 _"Oh can it, it'll be fine!"_ Sollux snapped. _"He won't be alone. Terezi, I want you to switch targets to Eridan as well. Cover Jake's ass and make sure no one gets killed. Once Dirk and Nepeta have reached your position, you can head over there. Understood?"_

 _"Got it, boss,"_ Terezi snickered, and everyone could _feel_ her snarky grin.

Sollux continued. _"TV, are you ready to take on an opponent?"_

 _"Oh, um, I think that maybe I can, do that. If I, um, can be useful."_

 _"Then KK, I want you to show him how the teleporters work and get him to GZ."_

 _"Woah, woah, woah!"_ Dave yelped. _"You're sending some random troll that just died to fight Gamzee? Don't know if you've noticed, Sollux, man, but this particular battle isn't a very easy one! He'll just get in the way!"_

 _"Can it, Strider! TV is the closest thing to a quadrant GZ has, excluding KK, so maybe seeing him will knock some sense into that empty pan of his!"_

Tavros's voice shook as he replied, _"I can, um, definitely do that! I think…"_

 _"Hey, what about me, then?"_ Karkat bit out. _"Do you just want me to fucking stand here for the foreseeable future? Because that makes me feel real fucking useless, Sollux."_

 _"Stay put,"_ was the answering snap, and the response was made up a combination of Dave, John, and Sollux ordering him in unison.

Sollux cleared his throat. _"What I mean, KK, is that you're in reserve. We know you're not doing too well still, so you should stay put until we need you."_

 _"Right,"_ Karkat snorted. _"So in other words, stay out of the way, you useless fuck. Got it."_

 _"KK, now is not the time for your bitching!"_

 _"Yeah, well if you would just fucking let me—!"_

 _"Boys!"_ Kanaya snapped, barely audible over whatever shitstorm was happening on her side of the battle. _"Now is not the time!"_

Sollux's answering growl was barely audible. _"Fucking fine. KK, stay put. The rest of you, move out!"_

Karkat's snarling was cut off by the termination of the signal, and Jake looked up to lock eyes with Dirk the instant he knew they weren't being listened in on anymore.

"So…" Jake said awkwardly. "Good luck with Equius?"

Dirk shook his head. "Fuck…Sollux, that idiot, he's seriously sending you after Eridan. We _just_ decided that wasn't a good idea."

"Terezi will be there," Jake pointed out. "And Jade. I'll be fine."

"You'd better be," he snarled, "because if you aren't, I'm going to wring Sollux's skinny little neck."

He smiled goofily. "You don't have to worry, old chap! I'll take Eridan down and be back before supper!"

Dirk just shook his head, bemused. "You're such a ridiculous, unironic dork."

"Yes, but I'm _your_ unironic dork."

He rolled his eyes. "Get out of here, English. You've got a fish to gut."

†††

John's vision spotted back in just in time to see the troll that had to be Tavros arrive in a flurry of sputtering and uncertainty.

"I'm here!" the troll announced, then yelped a second later as Gamzee hurled one of his clubs right at him. Luckily it just clanged off the side of Tavros's mechanical legs and clattered uselessly to the ground. "Oh, no—hey, um, are you okay?"

Gamzee just snarled in response, then turned his attention back on Dave, who had just lunged for him with his sword outstretched. He looked good, John thought, considering that he'd had to hold his own while his partner took a few moments to resurrect. One eye was slightly swollen, blood trickled from one corner of his mouth where he'd no doubt bitten his tongue, and there were a few miscellaneous bruises and cuts around his shoulders and arms, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. Noticing the lack of bloody slash marks down his chest, John realized that Jane must have stopped by while he was dead.

"Um, let me help you up!"

John allowed Tavros to tug him to his feet, offering the troll a grateful smile as his head spun for just a moment with the aftereffects of death. "Why are you here?" he asked. "I thought Rose told you to stay with Karkat…?"

"She, um, decided that I should, come here and help you guys fight Gamzee."

He blinked. "Really?" _I must have been dead for that one._

Dave yelped suddenly, _loudly_ , and a spray of blood met the air as Gamzee hooked his claws into his cheek. "Guys, as interesting as this is, I could use some fucking help!"

"Oh, um, of course!" Tavros flicked his wrist, and then a tapered lance was appearing in his hands. He held the thing almost like a spear, pointing the end towards Gamzee. "Gamzee, uh, think you could just stop trying, to kill us?"

"Where would the fun in that be, motherfucker?" the troll snarled in return. "I've just gotta see how that miraculous brown blood of yours looks when it's all motherfucking spread out over the grass."

Tavros flinched. "I really don't, um, think that that's a good, idea! You were kind of, supposed to be my matesprit at one point, and I really don't think you want to do this!"

Gamzee chuckled, the sound low and dark, and said, "That was a _real_ motherfucking long time ago, Tavbro. No time for that now, my little brown-blooded miracle."

"Um, but—!"

There was no more talking. Gamzee dashed at them, and for a split second all three of them stood there in shock, hardly able to believe that a single troll was rushing down three opponents with _very real, very deadly weapons_. But Gamzee was either overly confident or just out of his mind, because he was charging _right at them_ with his clubs held loosely in both hands.

"Scatter!" John yelped.

Dave and John shot straight up into the air, but Tavros wasn't so lucky. He tried to stab at Gamzee as he approached, but the clown troll just leapt up and stomped one foot down on the lance, pinning it to the ground as the clubs swung for his victim's head.

John saw it, though, saw it coming from a mile away—and he blasted out with the strongest current of air he could muster just as Dave swooped in and slashed a strong swipe across Gamzee's shoulders with his blade, just as Tavros yelped and threw himself to one side, and Gamzee ended up swinging at nothing as he was pushed to the ground.

"Ow…" the juggalo groaned, lurching to his feet before anyone had the chance to strike again. "That motherfucking _hurt!"_

 _Oh no,_ John thought. But that was the _only_ thing he had the chance to think before Gamzee was roaring and lashing out, and all three of them were yelping in alarm as he turned into a one-troll hurricane.

It seemed that anger only made him faster, only made him stronger, only made him more eager to bash all of their brains in. _Don't be heroic,_ John reminded himself as he realized that the possibility of dying again was all too real, with clubs swinging this way and that and claws slashing that way and Gamzee's mouthful of fangs snapping at anyone that got too close.

 _Don't be a hero. Don't do anything foolish. Karkat is waiting for you somewhere out there, and you're going to find your way back to him!_

"Gamzee!" Tavros cried, dodging a swipe of claws that would have raked right across his eyes. "Gamzee, um, come on! You can, hear me, right? I was the same way, wanting to kill everyone, but I think it's just something, um, wrong with our think pans! You can snap, out of it!"

Gamzee wasn't listening anymore. He just roared, clubs a hair's breadth from smashing Tavros to a pulp, and somehow managed to take on a three-person team without breaking a sweat.

"This is bad," Dave hissed, struggling to get close enough to land a strike without putting himself in the range of Gamzee's flailing arms. "Sending Tavros here was a bad idea; seeing him just set the guy off!"

"I'm, sorry!"

"You should get out of here," Dave continued. "Leave this to John and me, just go make sure Karkat's okay or something!"

"But, um—!"

"You should go," John agreed. "You won't resurrect if you die."

"I just, um, got here! I think maybe I can, help if I can just get him to listen!"

"We don't have _time_ for—hey!" Dave gasped as one of Gamzee's clubs clipped him in the side, sending him spinning awkwardly in midair. John was nearly next, but he just barely managed to bat the weapon aside with his hammer.

Tavros, though…

"Gamzee!" Tavros shrieked, the name ending in a choking gasp as the clown troll caught him in that awkward space where metal met skin, and there was a distinctive _snap_ as something went wrong with the wiring, and his legs went limp.

 _Oh god._ "Tavros, hang on!" John darted forward, wind already gathering at his fingertips as he prepared to blast the clown troll away from his hapless victim.

"Stay the fuck _out of this!"_ Gamzee roared, turning his attention away long enough to take a swipe at John as he approached. He dodged it with an alarmed hiss just as Dave darted in to take his place.

"Back _off,"_ Dave snapped, driving into Gamzee's side sword-first. But Gamzee batted him away effortlessly, club bashing into his chest and stealing his breath away. The human crashed to the ground with a rasping cry and lay there motionless.

"Dave!" John gasped, hoping desperately that he hadn't just been killed. Because he'd been trying to save Tavros, his death would have been blatantly heroic. But as he darted just a few inches closer, he was relieved to hear a soft groan coming from Dave's direction. Dazed, then, not dead.

A horrified screech tore John back to the present, and his head snapped to the side to see Gamzee looming over Tavros menacingly. The troll was trapped on his back without the use of his legs, lance just out of reach.

 _I've got to help him!_ John swept forward with his hammer outstretched in an attempt to bat Gamzee right in the back of the head.

"John, _don't!"_

Dave's yell made him hesitate in shock for just a heartbeat—and it was a heartbeat that saved his life. For as John darted for Tavros in an attempt to help him, Gamzee predicted where he was about to go and swungwith all his strength, and a club whistled through the air with enough force to split his skull wide open. It _would_ have split it open, too, and sprayed his gray matter across the ground, if not for Dave's shout making him hesitate that brief moment that let the club go screeching by in front of his face rather than through it. And _that_ definitely would have been heroic enough to put him out of action for good.

It had almost been over. John hovered there in midair, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, chest heaving as he realized that yes, that had nearly been _it_ for him. He would have died just then, died for good, _really_ died for the first time, until Jane got to him and dragged him out of the abyss. He had almost lost Karkat, lost him by leaving him alone and miserable in a world where his moirail no longer existed.

 _It had almost been over._

But that was still better than it really _being_ over, as it was for Tavros as Gamzee raised his club and brought it down with a sickening crunch.

†††

Something had changed in the tide of battle. Dirk wasn't quite sure what it was, exactly, but he could feel it in the air as he moved, whirling around Equius and snapping his katana out once, twice, littering tiny cuts over his rather obscenely muscled arms. He darted back as the troll threw a punch (he'd already been on the receiving end of one of _those_ things today, so he knew just how strong Equius was), landing solidly on his feet before flash stepping back to let Nepeta lunge in with a yowl.

"Get off of that poor, defenseless human, you meanie!" she hissed, swiping her claws at her moirail with reckless abandon. Once she'd been told that he could be revived if he was killed, she seemed more than willing to attack him.

There was a flutter of movement to his right. "Do you feel that?" Roxy whispered.

He couldn't help the shiver that ran down his spine at the sound those words, at the feeling of confirmation that not all was as it appeared to be. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

"Something has changed. A cog slipped out of place."

He couldn't agree more. Something was just _wrong._

"Ouch!" Nepeta yelped, and Dirk's attention was drawn back to the matter at hand. "Equius, stop being so pawful!"

"Step aside, lowbloods," was the answering snarl. "None of you fools stand a chance against me!"

"I'm your meowrail! I'm not supposedto stand a chance against you, I'm supposed to _help_ you!"

The only response she got was the swiping of a fist in her direction and a pained screech as just the edges of his knuckles caught her on the shoulder and launched her backwards.

"Nepeta!" Roxy exclaimed. Then she turned a fierce glare on Equius and was swooping in with those strange green block things whirring at her fingertips. She darted around him like an annoying bug as she flung cone-shaped structures at him that spun like tops in midair. It was useless, though—all Equius had to do was slam his fists straight into the points to get them to shatter. It made him bleed, sure, but he didn't seem to mind. The guy was a _monster._

Dirk flash stepped in at Equius's back and bore down upon him with his blade. There was still that nagging feeling in the back of his head, though, and it unsettled him so much that when Equius turned and swept his feet out from under him with such strength that he was _sure_ his ankles were going to bruise, he didn't even think to run away before the troll's fist was slamming down and nearly crushing his skull in. He'd already died once today, and he didn't want to do it again—but he wasn't going to have much of a choice if he couldn't get his head on straight.

"Dirk, focus!" Roxy cried, and a wall of green crashed into Equius and unsteadied him just enough for Dirk to flash step away to safety. "We've got a job to do!"

She was right, but…

 _Damn it._ Dirk's hand rose to his ear, and the next moment he was barking out, "Sollux! You have that giant monitor in front of you, right?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, _"Yeah, what do you want?"_

He had to take a moment to dodge as Equius barreled towards them, swinging first at Nepeta, then at him. Nepeta darted around the blow and leapt onto her moirail's back, and her claws dug furiously into his thick gray flesh.

"Has something changed?" he finally managed to ask. "I mean, is everyone okay?"

 _"Funny you should say that—I just got a message from Dave's useless team, and it looks like Tavros just kicked the pailing device."_

He was going to assume that that meant Tavros was dead. "That's it? Nothing else?"

 _"Nothing that I know of."_

Hmm…was Tavros's death really the only thing making him feel uneasy about this situation? Dazedly, he reached up and ceased the signal he was sharing with Sollux. He thought he heard an indignant squawk of confusion as he did so, most likely Sollux demanding to know if he'd contacted him _just_ for that purpose, but he'd hung up before he had the chance to get the full sentence out.

"Dirk!" Roxy yelled again.

He looked up just in time to see Nepeta go flying, striking the ground at an odd angle and choking for breath as Equius turned his attention on Roxy instead.

"Dirk, _help!"_

He snapped into action. His strange feeling could wait, Roxy was in danger _now._ He leapt over Nepeta, who was still struggling to get her breath back, and for the umpteenth time flash stepped to Equius's back and swung with all his strength.

Equius shrieked as the blade hit home. "Insufferable lowblood! Learn your place!" He whipped around and hurled a fist towards Dirk's face, and the human slashed at the troll's curled fingers as they whistled by his face. He wasn't doing much damage, though. Equius was tough, tougher than Nepeta had been, and it was hard to hold his own when there was a whirlwind of furious troll punching and kicking and biting at him.

"Back!" Roxy commanded, and a moment later there were dozens of green constructs pelting Equius from throat to thigh as Dirk threw himself to the ground to avoid being caught in the crossfire. By then Nepeta was back, looking slightly winded but determined, following Roxy's attack up with one of her own as her wickedly sharp claws glanced off Equius's face. She didn't get his eyes, not quite, but she still managed to get in several shallow slashes that ran from cheek to cheek, crossing the nose in a painful-looking manner. Dirk darted in just behind her and slashed again, and then Nepeta took another swipe, and then Roxy was pelting the troll with constructs, and the three of them fell into a deadly rhythm.

The rhythm didn't last long, though. It broke the instant Equius got his fist around Roxy's arm and _squeezed,_ and she wailed as the bones crunched hideously. Then Equius was throwing her into the ground and stomping, and Dirk immediately wished he could forget the way the troll stepped down on her chest and crushed her effortlessly. _Not heroic,_ he recognized, though it was a small comfort. _She'll be fine in a few minutes._

"You mean troll!" Nepeta screeched, slashing for Equius's eyes again. "That was so cruel! Equius, be a good meowrail and—"

Equius wasn't listening. He just lashed out and _grabbed,_ and Nepeta was too close to get away in time even with her incredible speed. There was a hand sealed around her neck, and it would take only the slightest twitch for Equius's terrible strength to crush bone.

Dirk flash stepped forward in alarm the instant he saw it. Nepeta couldn't resurrect if she died, and they needed everyone they could get. Unfortunately, Equius was ready for him. All it took was a nudge to the shoulder, and he was flying backwards with no hope of catching himself in midair.

"Equius!" Nepeta choked. "Equius, please! You're my meowrail, I know you wouldn't hurt me! You could stop fighting and come with me, it would be purrfect! You can build your own hive and I can build mine nearby, and we can be together as often as you—!"

Equius snarled, tightened his grip, and there was the sickening sound of bone crunching. Nepeta went limp.

That feeling was back, Dirk thought. The feeling that the tide was turning in the wrong direction, flooding further up the shoreline to consume them all, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.


	24. Everyone: Finish This

**Chapter 24:** **Everyone: Finish This**

* * *

 _ **Passw8rd?**_

* * *

Jake tracked Eridan with his sniper rifle as he moved like a demon, whipping this way and that with Ahab's Crosshairs and firing off blast after blast of burning plasma. Jade had already died once from what he understood, and things weren't looking any better now. Terezi was helping, but she was having a hard time getting in close enough to do any real damage with those weird cane-sword things. Jane was doing her best, but she was obviously exhausted from having fought Eridan for so long already. And Jake himself…

He wasn't doing so well. He was relatively out of the line of fire, though he'd had to throw himself out of the way a few times so far, but shooting Eridan was having about as much of an effect as it had on Tavros. It would work eventually, but landing enough shots to start carving through that thick gray skin was proving to be a problem.

Well…that and the fact that he had a _really_ bad feeling all of the sudden. Something in the air, maybe? His stomach was just twisting up into knots, and he wasn't sure why.

He squeezed the trigger automatically as Eridan paused in the space right in the center of his crosshairs, satisfaction overtaking him as he heard the answering roar of pain. He'd hit the sea troll right in the shoulder, and a spray of violet met the open air.

"Nice on!" Jade cheered, taking advantage of Eridan's momentary lapse to kick him point blank in the face. Terezi was there not a second later with her blades extended to make mincemeat of her opponent's chest. Unfortunately, Eridan seemed just fine even _after_ there were several deep slashes in his skin. He threw Terezi off, then Jade, and started firing on them with a low, rasping growl.

 _Oh no you don't!_ Jake fired again, then again, the bullets piercing straight into Eridan's wrists and making him screech. His aim was thrown off just enough to let Terezi and Jade rocket off into the sky.

Jade wasted no time. Despite her obvious exhaustion she was immediately in the act of snatching up pebbles and blowing them up to the size of boulders, chucking them at Eridan in an attempt to crush him. Terezi wasn't far behind. She darted in and out of the flying rocks, using them for protection whenever Eridan tried to blast her metal wings off her back. She never got close enough to do anything but bat at him briefly with her blades, but it was enough to keep him distracted while Jade battered him with boulders and Jake clipped him with as many bullets as he could.

Eridan went down for just a moment, overwhelmed, and Jake's heart leapt with momentary triumph. Behind that triumph, though, was that same flicker of doubt. He just…he had a bad feeling about this. A _really_ bad feeling.

His bad feeling only intensified as Eridan lurched to his feet with a vicious roar. "You're all lowblood scum!" he snarled. "A bunch of soft, useless scum suckers!" His gun was back in his hands, and he fired again and again in an attempt to blast Jade and Terezi off the face of the planet. Luckily he didn't seem to notice Jake where he was lying with his stomach flat against the ground, sniper riffle set on its stand to steady it. The troll just continued to attack the girls without halt.

"Just lay down and die!" Eridan sneered. His gun was leveled at Jade, and only a quick shove on Terezi's behalf saved her from dying again as a plasma beam burned through the air where her head had been a moment prior.

"Thanks!" Jade gasped, eyes wide as she no doubt realized that she'd almost been put out of action for a second time. "I really—" Then she broke off with a horrible scream as Eridan really _did_ manage to hit her, and the blast burned straight through her chest.

"Jade!" Terezi cried in shock, but the girl was already lying motionless on the ground as her body started to help her regenerate. It hadn't been heroic or just; she would be fine.

But Terezi and Jake, on the other hand…

"Perfect," the sea troll growled. "Now, let's end this, shall we?"

Terezi squared her shoulders at him. She seemed surprisingly calm, staring down someone who had once been her friend with the intention of killing him. Her knuckles were white as she gripped her twin blades, both pointed stiffly to the ground. "Eridan," she said, and her voice was deadly calm. "Stop being a fool."

"I'm not bein' a fool, Ter, I'm offin' a bunch of people with no business stayin' alive!"

"Is that really what you think? You've always had this grand idea that you were going to eliminate all the lowbloods and all the landdwellers, but you never actually did anything about it. What makes you think now will be any different?"

Eridan curled his lip in a fierce snarl. "Don't chastise me, landdweller! I'll krill anyone who gets in my way, which means krillin' the lot of you and movin' on to the next target!"

"Is that so?"

"Shore as hell is!"

Terezi narrowed her eyes at him, their teal shine cutting straight through her shades. She tensed, Eridan tensed, and the two eyed each other as Jake watched breathlessly from the shadows.

And then, just like that, everything became a blur.

Terezi whipped forward like a hurricane, one of her blades clattering to the ground as she grabbed the barrel of Ahab's Crosshairs and aimed it for the sky. The other came up, weapon still in hand, and stabbed viciously into the sea troll's shoulder. The triumph didn't last long, though, as screeching furiously, Eridan used his seadweller strength to wrench his weapon out of Terezi's grasp.

Jake saw it coming in slow motion. He saw Eridan kick Terezi back and to the ground, blades clattering out to either sides of her. He saw her gasp for breath at the harsh impact, and knew that there would be no dodging. He saw Eridan swing his weapon to point at her head, saw his finger tense on the trigger.

Terezi wasn't god tier. If she died there would be no coming back, and Jake would be alone, and Jake would _die,_ and Eridan would go kill all their friends.

Jake was already moving.

He didn't have time to think about it. Lining up a shot would take too long, wouldn't be enough—and so when he lurched forward, crossing an impossible distance in an impossibly short amount of time, he went straight for Eridan and barreled into his side.

It worked. Eridan squawked indignantly as he was pushed to one side and landed harshly on his side, Jake on top of him, the cold muzzle of the gun pressed flush against his chest. For a moment, then, there was silence. Eridan stared at him in shock, and Jake stared back in horror because he'd _felt_ it.

He'd felt the bolt of plasma sear straight through his body.

Eridan's shocked expression slowly cracked into a wild grin. "Why English…how very _heroic_ of you."

There was a hand at his shoulder, then, pushing him off and rolling him sloppily onto his back. It didn't hurt much, he realized. Dying. He'd done it before, of course, so he'd already known that. The first time he'd died it had been quick. A flash of light, a searing flicker of pain that just barely kissed every cell before fading to a soft, lulling brightness. The second had been sharp and biting, bullets riddling his chest and washing him in darkness before Jane arrived to pull him back from his heroism. This time was only slightly different.

"Jake!" he though he heard Terezi gasp. "Oh gog, you idiot, you—!" Then she cried out in pain as Eridan clipped her with another blast.

"No point in talkin' to a dyin' man," Eridan snarled out. "Chin up, Ter, we're endin' this like a couple of honorable trolls should—by fightin' to the death."

There was more, Jake thought, but his world was a blur of motion. He wasn't bleeding, he knew that much—Eridan's gun fired such concentrated blasts of heat that it had cauterized the wound. But what he _was_ was devoid of several vital organs, including a functioning heart. Oh, man—Dirk was going to be _so pissed_ when he found out. He'd be alone.

A high-pitched screech of anger cut through the fog around his mind. It reminded him of Jane—and with that he realized that Dirk _wouldn't_ be alone. He would have Jane, and Roxy, and all of their human friends. He would be okay.

He gasped as his chest twinged with pain. His heart tried to stutter, but it wasn't there.

 _Heh…sorry about this one, Dirk._

It was the last thing he ever thought.

†††

The tide of battle had turned.

 _"What?"_ Dirk roared. "Say that again, I fucking _dare_ you!"

Sollux's voice was grim as it flooded Dirk's mind, and the minds of everyone on their team. _"I meant what I said, shithead. Jake is dead. So are Tavros and Nepeta, and we need to keep our heads on straight if we want to win this!"_

Dirk's heart swelled with something beyond anger. "How the _fuck_ am I supposed to do that? My boyfriend is fucking _dead_ , and I—!" Then he froze, mouth hanging open. Jake was dead…and he knew who'd killed him. He _knew_.

 _Eridan Ampora._

 _"Dirk?"_ Rose asked, sounding alarmed. _"Dirk, what are you thinking? Don't do anything foolish!"_

"I know who killed Jake," he snarled, and his mind flooded with the image of regal fins and lightning bolt horns. "He has to _pay."_

 _"Terezi and Jade can handle this!"_ Rose insisted. _"Hold your position—if you leave, Roxy will be fighting Equius alone!"_

"Well then you'd better get Vantas over here, because I'm going to make sure that Ampora _never takes another breath!"_

 _"What?"_ John squawked _. "You want Karkat go to fight—?"_

There was more, but Dirk had already terminated his end of the broadcast. He looked to Roxy, struggling with Equius and yelling something to him about how she was going to _pulverize_ him if he left her, but he could barely hear it. He just flew up, mind blank with the blackest anger he'd ever felt in his life, and tore for the teleporter. His phone was already in his hand, Eridan's violet dot pulsing out from the southeast side of town.

 _Better prepare yourself, Ampora. Because I'm going to tear your fucking head off for what you've taken from me, and it_ still _won't be enough._

†††

Karkat jiggled his earpiece frantically as the signal spotted in and out. Now was _not_ the time to be losing the broadcast! Not now, when Tavros and Nepeta and Jake were dead.

 _"This is bad,"_ Rose came in, voice strained. _"Roxy, has Dirk left you alone?"_

 _"He has,"_ was the response. _"Fucking idiot, I swear! But I'm sure I can handle Equius on my own."_

 _"No, you can't."_ There was a pause as Rose no doubt tried to decide what to do. They were already stretched so thin; Karkat was the only moderately capable person not fighting. Rose seemed to come to the same conclusion, for the next words out of her mouth were, _"Karkat, head to Equius's position."_

 _"You're joking,"_ Dave said flatly. _"Karkat can't handle someone like Equius."_

 _"It's our only choice!"_ Rose insisted. _"The next time Roxy dies and no one is around to intercept Equius, he'll go gang up on somebody else and our entire plan will fall apart!"_

 _"Yeah, but Karkat isn't the one that should—!"_

"Cram it, Strider!" Karkat bit out, forcing his voice into its usual, gruff tone. He wasn't going to let anyone think he was afraid. "I'm the only one left that can go help Roxy, so I'm going to fucking help her!"

There was an indignant snort. _"He'll tear you apart, KK. Don't be an idiot."_

"There's no other way, Sollux! I'm going to fight Equius, and I'm going to fucking win!"

Silence. Then, _"Roxy, you're the one that's going to have to cover his sorry ass if he goes to 'help.' You decide."_

He thought she'd say no. Sollux thought that Roxy was going to reject him without a second thought, and that he'd be safe as a result.

That wasn't what happened.

 _"Karkat thinks he can handle it, and I could really use some help. Send the guy over here already!"_

 _"What?"_ Sollux yelped.

 _"You can't be serious!"_

"This is a battle," he growled. "We don't have time for arguments like this."

 _"My thoughts exactly,"_ Rose cut in. _"Karkat, go."_

He did.

†††

After that, John and Dave died.

Not permanently, of course, they weren't _that_ foolish—but Gamzee was quick, fueled by anger and determination to tear them all apart, and with Dave still dazed and John still in shock from what he'd just seen happen to Tavros, it didn't take much. Gamzee went for John first, and one quick strike to the back of the head was all it took to send him into stasis. Then he moved onto Dave, and the sickening crack of his own bones shattering rang in his ears as the troll repeated the trick he'd just pulled on John.

And then…nothing.

†††

When Karkat finally hopped into he last teleporter and made his way to where Equius's deep blue dot was pulsing out waves on the screen of his phone, he found himself stepping into the middle of a disaster area.

"Karkat, you're here!" Roxy exclaimed. She looked beat up, he noted. Dirk had only left her alone for a few minutes, but it was obvious that things hadn't gone well. The imprint of knuckles on her cheek and the bruises dappling her arms signaled that much, at least. With Equius's strength, Karkat was impressed that her jaw wasn't broken.

Karkat skidded to a halt well outside of Equius's range. His sickles were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were turning white, and his chest was constricting with fear that he knew he had to choke back. He was outmatched here, he knew that he was—but he had no choice but to help. If Roxy went down and Equius got away, their whole plan would be reduced to nothing.

"Mutant scum," Equius growled, regarding Karkat with a sniff. His brief pause gave Roxy time to catch her breath, though, and for that he was thankful. "You have no right getting involved in a fight so far above your pay grade!"

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. _Stay calm. You can do this._ "Yeah?" he bit out, and his voice was just as angry as he wanted it to be. "Do you really want to oppose your fucking _leader,_ Equius?"

The highblood curled his lip. "I'm no longer interested in taking orders from the likes of _you."_

Karkat blinked. He'd been sure that the mention of being the technical leader of the trolls would have made Equius hesitate, but there was nothing but indifference flickering in the troll's eyes as he turned up his nose at him. Clearly his pan really _was_ scrambled from passing through that portal thing.

"Prepare yourself, lowblood," Equius sneered, taking up a fighting stance. His knuckles were already shredded, presumably from Dirk slicing into them with his katana, but he didn't seem perturbed by the wounds.

Karkat gulped. _Better get ready, Vantas—this is really happening._

Roxy appeared at his side. She landed half in front of him, those strange green constructs she fought with dancing in the palms of her hands. "Can you handle this?" she asked, eyes flickering briefly to his face.

"Yeah," he said, and he wasn't entirely sure if it was the truth. "Yeah, of course I can fucking handle this."

Roxy smirked. "Then try to keep up, hotshot."

†††

"Get out of my _way!"_

Dirk barreled straight through the barrier Jade was trying to create with her own body, vision ghosting with red as Eridan came into view. That was _him_. That was the person that had murdered Jake, and he was going to _pay._

"Dirk, please!" Jade begged, trying to snag onto his arm and pull him away from Eridan. "Please, wait—!"

"Get the fuck off me!" Dirk threw Jade away from him, vaguely noticing the way she went crashing into the ground with a pained yelp. He didn't really care, though—all he could see was Eridan, whose head was cocked to one side in interest.

"What's this?" the seadweller purred. "Someone else to krill?"

He wasn't in the mood for banter. What he _was_ in the mood for was _attacking_ , katana flickering out as he dove to slice Eridan's head right the fuck off his shoulders.

"Woah, there!" Eridan chuckled, easily dodging the swipe and returning it with a blast of plasma that burned a hole in his shirt. "Better be careful there, Strider—don't want to be dyin' before you have the chance to entertain me!"

"Fuck you," he snarled. He flash stepped again, behind Eridan's back this time, but his katana barely managed to make contact before Eridan was kicking him away with practiced grace.

"Back off, gutter swill!" Eridan hissed. "Like you stand a chance of bestin' _me!"_

Everything was blurring together. All he knew was that Eridan was there, Eridan was laughing at him and dodging this way and that and firing off deadly blasts of plasma, and Terezi and Jade were scrambling for cover in horror, and he was going to _slaughter_ the troll standing in front of him.

"Dirk!" Jade wailed. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

 _I'll just resurrect. Not like dying to this fucker would be considered heroic._

"I know you want to avenge Jake," Jade went on, "but not like this!"

Eridan raised a brow. "Is that what this is aboat? Avengin' that little friend of yours that got himself killed defending Ter?" He threw his head back and laughed, the sound a rancorous roar that split the still air. "You're better off just forgetin' this one, kid. Don't make the same mistakes he did."

Dirk's vision went red, and he couldn't see a thing through it.

The next few moments were a disaster.

It happened quickly. In a fit of blinding fury and agony, Dirk lashed out and took hold of Eridan's soul with everything he had, drawing on powers he hadn't used in years. He hooked his claws into that struggling, writhing essence and _pulled,_ and his heart swelled with satisfaction when he heard Eridan's shriek of pain. He wouldn't let up. He pulled and pulled and _pulled._

"Fuck!" Eridan screeched, a haze of violet surrounding him as his soul began to split from his body. "You little shit, that fucking _hurts!"_

He couldn't see a thing. He almost had Eridan, he was almost _gone._

"Dirk!" he thought he heard Jade scream.

"Strider!" Terezi called in alarm. "Get away from there!"

Why were they yelling? Eridan was going to _die._

Then he heard a low, pained rasp of a laugh, and everything went still. _What…?_

"Checkmate, dirtblood _scum."_

Jade wailed again. "Dirk!"

There was a flash of movement after that, one that he couldn't quite make sense of. He thought that Eridan was moving, was pressing the cool muzzle of a gun into his stomach and moving to pull the trigger. He thought that Jade was scrambling forward, flying for him in a flurry of desperate movement. He thought that she was pushing him aside and taking the hit herself. He thought that she was crying out in pain, striking the ground and lying still.

"J-Jade…?" Dirk choked out, and his vision was suddenly clear. "What…? Why did you…?"

She choked, clutching at the wound in her chest, and when she spoke her voice was weak and faint. "It would have been just," she rasped.

"Just?" he yelped. "No it wouldn't, it was—"

Terezi cut in with a furious snarl. "It was you taking _revenge,_ completely uncaring when you threw Jade out of the way, fully prepared to bring _anyone_ harm in an attempt to end this guy! It would have been _just,_ you miserable excuse for a human being!"

His heart lurched. _No…_

Jade's eyes glazed over. "C-call Jane," she managed, but it was so soft that Dirk barely heard it. "S-she can r-revive…"

Eridan just laughed, pausing to revel in the misery of the human crouched in his feet as his friend fell limp. "That's what, four of you dead? Not looking good for the lot a' you." Then he raised his gun, and the muzzle pointed right between Dirk's eyes. "Hey, think it'll still be just if I krill you now?"

Dirk stared, jaw slack. _Oh, fuck…Jade is…_

Eridan shrugged, seeing that Dirk wasn't intending upon moving. "Let's find out, shall we?"

Terezi barely yanked him out of the way in time.

†††

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck!"_ Sollux hissed, slamming his fist down on the table as he watched everything begin to fall apart. If the dots were accurate—and they were—then they were counting Tavros, Nepeta, and Jake among the dead. What was more, until Jane could get out there Jade was down too. Dirk was fighting Eridan, leaving Karkat and Roxy alone with Equius, and _what the fuck was Gamzee doing?_

"John, Dave, come in!" Sollux bit out, watching as Gamzee's indigo dot streaked with horrifying speed towards the lab. "Guys, come the fuck in!"

There was no response. _Fuck, they're resurrecting at the same time! GZ is loose!_

He put out an all call. "This is a red alert, you guys! John and Dave are down, and GZ is moving for the lab! I need support!"

A chorus of gasps met his plea. Rose was the first to respond with real words, though, and she asked, _"Who do you recommend we send?"_

 _"Me!"_ Roxy said at once. _"Callie is there, so I have to go make sure she's okay!"_

Karkat yelped. _"Wait, wait, you can't leave me alone to fight Equius!"_

"Absolutely not," Sollux agreed sharply. "Roxy, you—"

 _"No!"_ she snapped. _"If Callie dies because I didn't go back to help her, I'll never forgive myself! She's my girlfriend, I need to be there!"_

 _"You can't leave Karkat alone!"_ Kanaya insisted, sounding a mixture of pained and furious. Clearly her battle wasn't going well. _"Roxy, you have to stay there!"_

 _"Not a chance in hell, Rose! Karkat, you can hold your own, can't you?"_

 _"Fuck no I can't! Not against this freakshow!"_

"Roxy, hold your position!"Sollux growled.

 _"No, fuck you!"_

"We don't have time for—!"

Terezi cut in with a low snarl. _"Send Dirk."_

Sollux blanched. _"TZ, you can't just volunteer people."_

 _"He wasn't supposed to be with me in the first place, so send him back where he belongs_ now! _I can handle Eridan until someone clears up to help me."_

 _"You're not god tier,"_ Rose said. _"You know what that means, right?"_

 _"Trust me, I do. Now Dirk, get out of here!"_

There was a pause. Then, "Dirk, are you okay with this?"

 _"Fuck…"_ He sounded miserable, like he'd just offed one of his friends without meaning to. _Oh wait…_

"No time for hesitation," Sollux reminded him. "GZ is moving, and we need to decide _now."_

 _"Yes!"_ Dirk snapped. _"Yes, fuck, I'll go help Karkat! Just…hang on a second!"_

Karkat growled. _"Hurry it the fuck up!"_

 _"I'm trying!"_

Sollux pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose as the two continued to bicker. _Fuck…we don't have time for this._ Quickly, he took inventory of their remaining forces. Rose and Kanaya on Feferi. John and Dave down for a few minutes at least, depending on the severity of the killing blows. Terezi alone with Eridan. Karkat and Dirk on Equius. And soon, Roxy with Gamzee. Frantically, he tapped at the desk.

 _AA, are you out there? We need your help._

Gamzee's dot was moving closer. And as he watched, Dirk's orange dot appeared beside Karkat's candy red, and Roxy's dull pink flashed towards the nearest teleporter.

"Callie," Sollux said, turning to face the cherub. She was flushed with fear, eyes locked wide and terrified on the monitor. "Callie, you should hide. Get to the back of the lab and take cover."

She was trembling. But still she shook her head and whispered, "No, I should be here for Roxy!"

"You can't fight," he pointed out. "You'll just get in her way."

Her trembling grew in intensity. "Y-yes, but…"

"Oh, fuck," he hissed. Gamzee was already on them, on a collision course with both the lab and Roxy's pink dot. "No time!"

An explosion wracked the entire building.

 _No more time._

†††

When Dave next opened his eyes, it was to the realization that Gamzee was gone. Gamzee was gone, John was still lying in a pool of his own blood, and _fuck,_ Rose was going to kill him for this one. He'd had one job— _don't let Gamzee get away_ —and he'd failed.

His phone was in his hand in a heartbeat, and he sucked in a harsh breath as he realized that Gamzee was at the lab. His dot pulsed accusingly, asking, _why did you let this happen? What have you done? Everyone could be doomed now because you messed up._

No. He wouldn't let that happen!

"John," he hissed, staggering just slightly as he made his way to his friend and shook him by the shoulder. "John wake up!"

He groaned, shifting just slightly. "One more minute…"

"There aren't going to _be_ any more minutes if you don't get the fuck up right now!" Dave snapped. He shook him harder. "Come on, dude!"

For a single, agonizing moment, there was nothing. But then John's eyes flickered open, looking sluggish and weak from the sheer amount of times he'd been forced to regenerate that day, and he stared up at Dave with a frown. "Dave…?"

 _"Yes,_ you disaster!"

He blinked. "What's going on?"

Not giving John a second more to rest, Dave reached out and hauled him to his feet. "We both died, man, and Gamzee is on his way to the fucking lab!"

John paled. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously, now let's go!"

They did. They flew together for the teleporter that had taken them to Gamzee, hoping that they would get there before he reached the lab. They reached it in record time, ready to hop through, and…

"Uh-oh." John tapped the thing with his foot when it didn't activate to take them to the lab. "It's not connected to anything on the other side."

 _Fuck._ Dave checked his phone again, and his heart sank when he saw that Gamzee was already there. "Gamzee must have destroyed the teleporters."

"What do we do, then?" John whispered.

"Easy. We fly."

†††

Terezi was losing ground fast. She'd been intending to hold Eridan in place indefinitely, to take him down and call Jane to help, but it looked like that wasn't an option anymore. She'd sent Dirk away to help Karkat because she'd _known_ that Karkat would die to Equius without help, but she wasn't so sure of her ability to win _her_ battle. Eridan just kept pushing her back, and the two of them were on the fringes of the village now. There were no villagers around, seeing as they were all huddled inside their homes, but Terezi knew that if Eridan turned his gun on the houses, many would die.

Oh, and also, she was bleeding out.

"Jane!" she barked. "Jane, are you almost here?"

 _"Almost!"_ she called in response. _"Sollux just put out an all call saying that the teleporters are down, though, so I'm having to fly there myself! Did you hear the message?"_

She hadn't. Her earpiece must have been malfunctioning from the rather harsh impact the side of her head had just experienced against the ground. "Just hurry!"

 _"Tracking your location now. I'm three minutes inbound!"_

 _I hope that's soon enough._ Terezi pressed down hard on the wound Eridan had left in her side with his claws when she'd gotten just a hair too close. Jane could bring her back to life once still, but there was no use in taking chances. If she had the opportunity to preserve that extra life, she'd do whatever it took.

"Oh, Ter! Where are you hidin' Ter?"

She winced and pressed herself back against the wall of the hive she was cowering against. She knew she had to keep Eridan distracted, or he would go running for the lab and take out their control tower. In other words, they would be left without instant communication and without any way of tracking the aggressive trolls. Things could only get worse from there, considering that they were already at a severe disadvantage with Jane unable to teleport around instantly.

"Come on, the sooner you stop hidin' the sooner we can be done with all this nonsense!"

Terezi peeked around the corner. Eridan was there, though he hadn't seen her, and was moving along the hives with his gun pointed towards the ground. _I'll keep him nice and busy for as long as I can, that way he doesn't go off and wreck our plan._

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Eridan purred teasingly.

 _Not a chance in paradox space._

Eridan stopped walking. He was standing in the middle of the dirt road, gun still aimed to the earth, eyes narrowed as he scanned his surroundings. "Are you really that determined to avoid me, Ter?"

She didn't respond.

"Well, then…" The sea troll raised his gun.

 _What are you aiming at?_ Terezi risked poking her head back around the edge of the building to smell more clearly just what was going on.

Her eyes widened as she realized what was about to happen. _The villagers!_

Eridan leveled Ahab's Crosshairs at one of the hives. "Say, Ter—if I pull the trigger right now, how many hives do you think the plasma will cut through before it stops? Think I can kill more than ten villagers with a single shot?"

She sucked in a sharp breath. The villagers were _innocent,_ entirely undeserving of the justice Eridan was about to dish out. This was completely uncalled for, and she absolutely would not stand for it!

Terezi moved to leap out and stop Eridan, but the tugging at her side forced her to lean back against the hive with a groan of pain. Yeah, moving was a _really_ bad idea.

Fortunately, that was when Jane appeared.

It was quick. There was a blur of gray and green, a flash of red, and then a trident was knocking into Eridan's gun and pushing it off course with a clang. The blast of plasma seared into the ground harmlessly.

"Terezi!" Jane cried, leaving Eridan reeling in momentary shock.

"Here!" she called back, managing to take a few steps forward.

Jane darted over to her without hesitation. "Hang on," she said, "I've got you now!" She flicked her wrist, healing magic extending in tendrils and grasping onto the place where Eridan's claws had so mercilessly slashed into her side. She felt the wound closing, felt her teal blood burning away into nothing, and then it was over.

"Thanks," she gasped, feeling strength wash back into her. "I owe you one."

Jane just nodded. Then her eyes flicked to Eridan, who had just managed to right himself after the dreadful shock of having his gun nearly shoved right out of his hands by a trident. "Need some help here, Terezi?"

"Are you an idiot?" she snapped. "You're our healer, if you go down then we're all fucked!"

"I can help!" she insisted. "I can stay with you just for a moment, and then—"

"Just _go!"_ Terezi snapped. She would _not_ be held responsible for the death of the one person that was keeping all of them alive. "No, you know what—get Jade back on her feet, _then_ go!"

Eridan growled, and Terezi jumped. When had he gotten so close?

"So this is your little healer?" the sea troll questioned, a devious smirk beginning to spread across his face. "The one makin' things so difficult for us?"

Terezi didn't like his tone of voice. "Jane, go. _Now."_

She didn't seem to be listening. "I am," she confirmed with a fierce glare. "And I'm the one that's going to bring _you_ back to life once you've been taken down!"

Eridan snorted. "I'd like to see you try."

Jane squared her shoulders at the troll. Her trident was back in her hand now, somehow retrieved from Eridan's side without her ever having moved.

"Careful," Eridan purred, seeing her determination. "Aren't you the one that's supposed to be healin' all your little friends?"

Jane pointed her trident at him. "You killed Jake. And Jade."

"Sure did, darlin'. You plannin' to do somefin aboat it?"

"Jane," Terezi hissed. "Don't get involved in this _._ Bring Jade back and _leave."_

"You're alone right now," she pointed out. "And if the others need me, they'll give me a call. I can fight this one battle, at least for a while."

"Don't be an idiot! Why the fuck would you not just—?"

She didn't listen. Her expression was fierce and determined, delicate fingers wrapped around the grip of her trident. Another human lost in the throes of fury, it seemed, driven from logical reason with the desire to _avenge._

"Well then," Eridan chuckled, "looks like this just got a whole lot more interestin'."

†††

When John and Dave arrived at the lab, they walked into the middle of a bloodbath.

Blood. Blood everywhere. Gamzee had torn right through the village on his way to the lab, and the bodies of prospitarians and dersites littered the streets. As they'd thought, the teleporters were completely destroyed. Jane would be stranded now, unable to travel swiftly between parties to heal them, and everyone on the fringes of the town would be unable to return to the lab quickly. This was _bad._

"Get down!" Roxy shrieked, and a moment later John and Dave were diving to the side as Gamzee hurled one of his clubs at them with enough strength to split their skulls.

"Fuck!" Dave gasped, and John agreed with a rasping groan. A guy could only hit the ground so many times in one day before it became ridiculous and _exhausting,_ and John thought he was beginning to reach his limit.

"Good to see you," Roxy quipped through the blood dribbling from her mouth. "A little late to save about a dozen villagers, though."

"Pleasetell me that you made sure Dirk was with Karkat before you left," Dave said, ignoring the mention of the villagers. Nothing could be done for them now. " _Please."_

Roxy smirked. "No worries, Strider. Your bro's taking care of business with Equius."

John couldn't help a sigh of relief. But it was short lived, because then Gamzee was snarling something at them and lashing out again, and there were clubs swinging in every direction and claws flashing every which way, and John remembered suddenly just how much he hated fighting Gamzee.

"This is getting old," Dave growled.

"And hard," Roxy agreed, sweeping around Gamzee's clubs and bashing him in the back of the head with a bundle of green cubes. "Dunno if you've noticed, but things aren't exactly going well for us."

"We'll win," John said determinedly. Gamzee was staggering backward, and he took advantage of the moment to blast him with a solid gust of air that nearly had him on his back. _Too many of us have died already…we have to win so that their deaths aren't for nothing!_

Dave pushed his shades up. "Yeah, winning. Let's do that. There are three of us now, right? That's more than enough to take this clown out."

John agreed. And so did Roxy, judging from the grim nod she offered them.

They attacked together, and time blurred into one continuous moment.

Roxy pelted Gamzee with everything she had, little green cubes with sharp points bouncing off his chest and back in a never-ending stream of destruction. John alternated between blasting Gamzee with air and slamming his hammer into whatever part of him he could reach, darting in and out of flashing clubs and swiping claws. Dave lashed out with his sword, sharp blade flickering this way and that and putting more cuts in Gamzee than anyone cared to count. Gamzee lashed out with his clubs, bouncing them off of green walls and air currents and cool steel, slashed his claws against unrelenting defenses and snarling when nothing gave. Together, John and Dave had been just enough to keep him occupied. But with a third party there, smashing against the juggalo's defenses and crushing him back, they were finally able to turn the tides against their aggressor. The lab would be safe. They would _win._

Or at least, they _would_ have won if not for what was happening on the other side of the village.

†††

It happened so fast that Terezi barely had time to realize it was happening. She got a little too close, slipped up just one time—and then Eridan's claws plunged into her stomach, ripped into her flesh and delicate organs, and _tore_ everything out of her.

"Terezi!" Jane cried, darting towards her with magic on her fingertips. But Eridan caught her by the throat and threw her down before she could get there, snarling.

"Not so fast there, darlin'!"

Jane thrashed with that wiry strength that was so surprisingly effective, trident batting at every part of Eridan she could reach, but it was already too late.

Terezi's world went black.

And then, as if by magic—no, _definitely_ by magic, by _healing_ magic—she was back.

She had no idea how much time had passed. How long it had taken Jane to get to her. All she heard was a low, rasping laugh, and then Eridan was saying, "What a cryin' shame. That's five, then."

 _That's five?_ Terezi's blood ran cold.

"No…actually, it's six, countin' Ter."

Her blood pusher jolted as she realized what must have happened while she was out. She inhaled deeply, mouth slightly open, hearing that Eridan was far enough away that he wouldn't notice, and all her fears were confirmed.

Only a few feet away, splayed across the ground, arms stretched towards Terezi almost desperately, was the body of Jane Crocker.

 _Heroic,_ her think pan supplied. _She died bringing me back to life._

Eridan sighed, and Terezi had to force herself to remain limp and seemingly lifeless as she heard him pass right beside her. She should fight. She should lurch up when he wasn't expecting it and blind him, claw his throat out, rip his blood pusher right out of his chest. But something deep in her chest throbbed with warning, and she _knew._ She knew that if she moved, if she let Eridan know that Jane had succeeded in reviving her in her final moments, he'd just kill her again. And so, bitterness rising in her throat at her own cowardice, she stayed quiet.

And Eridan, the arrogant fuck, fell for it. He shouldered Ahab's Crosshairs and left, just like that, heading in the direction of the lab. He didn't even bother killing the villagers or shooting at their houses, his mission residing elsewhere.

Then he was gone, and Terezi was alone with Jane's body. She sat up slowly, and the cloying scent of blood nearly made her choke. _We've lost our healer,_ she thought, captchaloguing the trident resting only a few feet away. _All deaths from here on out are permanent, barring people who reached god tier._

Shuddering at the muddy mixture of teal and scarlet squishing beneath her knees, she pushed herself to her feet. Her shaking fingers were at her earpiece a moment later, and she put out an all call.

"Jane's dead." It was all she could manage at the moment, her throat clogged with the sickening scent of death.

Silence. Then a chorus of horrified voices, each asking different questions and clamoring for different pieces of information.

Rose's voice was the first to cut through the white noise of panic. _"Please, all of you, be quiet for a moment! Terezi, tell us what happened."_

Her voice was flat. She could hear it. "I don't know for sure; I was dead when it happened. When I woke up, it looked like Eridan had killed Jane just as she tried to revive me. I guess it was heroic."

More silence. Then, in a soft tone, _"Fuck."_

That had been from Sollux.

For a long moment after that, there was complete silence. No one seemed to know how to react, suddenly stricken with the realization that their security blanket was gone. When someone finally spoke, it was Karkat _—_ and his voice was uncharacteristically soft and vulnerable.

 _"Are all of us going to die like this?"_

Nothing.

 _"We need to keep our heads on straight,"_ Rose said, though she sounded just as broken as everyone else felt. _"It looks like Eridan is heading for the lab. Terezi, head there to intercept. John, Dave, Roxy—be prepared to fight."_

 _"You got it,"_ Dave responded. _"We've almost got Gamzee down, so it shouldn't be a big deal."_

Terezi could practically taste how desperate he was, though, at the prospect of being thrown into another battle so soon after starting to get the better of Gamzee. She felt her stomach twist as she realized with startling clarity what was going to happen.

They were going to lose.

All injuries from here on out wouldn't be healed. All heroic and just deaths would be permanent. All deaths from ordinary humans and trolls, the ones that hadn't reached god tier, would be treated the same. The trolls they were facing were stronger than them, more agile than them, _better_ than them, and they couldn't be revived to join the fight once they were taken down.

 _We're so fucked._

And it was true. It was really fucking true.

†††

 _Jane is dead. Our healer is down for good._

The news sent a horrible jolt of hopelessness straight to Karkat's blood pusher as he just barely managed to dodge around one of Equius's fists, bringing his sickle down to slice through the thick skin of his forearm. He thought the troll roared in response, tried to lash out and catch him on the jaw as he darted backwards, but his pan was too fuzzy with horror to register it.

"Karkat, we have to _focus!"_ Dirk called from Equius's other side, no doubt seeing the dazed way he was holding himself. "Yeah, Jane is gone, but there's no use in us going down too!"

Logically, he knew Dirk was right. Emotionally, he was a wreck. He knew that he probably should have been more worried for himself, because he couldn't come back if he was injured too heavily. But instead he was worried about John and Dave, out there fighting more difficult targets with a much higher probability of being killed. He knew they weren't _idiots;_ dying in a heroic or just way would be quite a feat for them—but still he was concerned, knowing that one bad decision taking place in a single moment could leave him devoid of a quadrant.

"Karkat!" Dirk burst out, and the next moment the troll was blinking in confusion as he was tackled to the ground. There was a flurry of movement above him, a roar of pain from Equius, and then he heard the thud of someone much heavier than himself hitting the ground. There were a pair of hands curling around his shoulders, then, and for just a heartbeat he thought that Equius had him before he realized that his bones were completely intact and it was _Dirk's_ face looming over him.

"Screw your head back on and get the fuck up!" Dirk snarled, shaking him viciously as Equius struggled to regain his footing a few feet behind. "If you're going to space out like that then we're _both_ going to die!"

He was right, but it was hard to see that when he was too busy staring up at the sky in shock.

"Oh, fuck," Dirk hissed. The world blurred, and the human vanished from atop Karkat and reappeared behind Equius, smashing the flat of his blade across the back of his head. "Karkat!" he cried again. "Get up, _now!"_

He still couldn't hear clearly. But still he forced himself up, something deep in his pan telling him that he _had_ to do this, _had_ to take down his opponent and go to help John and Dave, and he faced Equius with the fiercest expression he could muster.

Dirk yelped suddenly as Equius managed to catch him with a fist, cracking bone and sending the human skittering back to rest at Karkat's feet. Equius followed his descent, and only a quick sidestep and a vicious blow delivered with cruel sickles kept the troll from crushing them both.

Karkat dragged Dirk to his feet, wincing at the sound of the human's gasping. Equius had definitely cracked one of his ribs, and Jane wasn't going to be around to heal it.

"We need to end this," Dirk wheezed. "Now, before we're too injured to continue."

"Oh, and I suppose you have a plan?" Karkat bit out.

Dirk eyed Equius calculatingly. The troll was taking a moment to right himself after his most recent fall, giving them a moment to breathe. "Actually…"

"Hurry it up, Strider!" Karkat hissed as Equius finally managed to steady himself.

Dirk's eyes flashed behind his shades. "Okay, here's the plan: trust me."

 _"What?"_

"Karkat," he growled in warning, gaze flickering to where Equius was standing. " _Trust_ me."

"Trust you?" he echoed. "You, the person who accused me relentlessly and then tried to cut my fucking hands off? Trust _you?"_

Dirk's features tightened. "Look, dude, I was wrong about you! I was wrong and I'll never be able to take back what I did, but at the very least you should trust that I'm not going to let you die here!"

Karkat glared.

"Fine, then," Dirk spat. "If you're not going to trust me not to kill you, then trust that I wouldn't do anything to hurt Dave!"

Karkat blanched, stuttering out, "W-wait, but—!"

But Dirk was already gone, vanishing into the shadows.

Karkat's head whipped towards Equius as he heard him laugh, a low, menacing sound that promised nothing but pain.

"All alone, are we?" the troll growled. "Has your little fool of a friend run off to help somebody else?"

Karkat's blood pusher lurched as he realized that Dirk was just _gone._ He was nowhere in sight, having flash stepped out of the clearing without a hint of ever having been there.

Equius stalked closer. Karkat felt like a cornered animal. "Guess it's just the two of us, huh?" He raised his fists.

Karkat gulped. Tensed. Then he scrambled to the side with a yelp as Equius dove for him, barely dodging a blow that would have crushed his skull in. _Dirk! What the fuck are you doing?_

Equius didn't let up. He followed up the first punch with a second, his knuckles glancing across Karkat's shoulder and coming dangerously close to putting his left arm out of action. He narrowly escaped that fate—but what he didn't escape was being thrown to the ground, rolling desperately to one side as Equius smashed his fists into the ground. One wrong move would have him dead, and he _knew_ it.

"Hold still!" Equius barked, fists blurring with the force of his desire to punch Karkat's brains out. Karkat was barely managing to dodge them all, sickles hanging loose in his hands as he struggled not to cut himself with his frantic flailing and attempts to get up off the ground. And then he _wasn't_ managing to dodge them all, because Equius had predicted exactly where he was about to roll and slammed his foot into the ground so that he just ended up throwing himself right into the side of the other troll's leg. Panicked, Karkat immediately attempted to scramble the other way, but was met with a harsh kick to the side. His entire left half immediately exploded with pain, and he hoped that the gills on that side hadn't been permanently damaged.

But there were more important things than that to worry about. Namely the fact that he was now splayed out on his back, Equius's legs anchored on either side of his stomach. Attempting to move sent a horrible jolt of pain through his torso, so blindingly agonizing that he didn't even react as the other troll knocked his sickles out of his hands and sent them skittering off across the prairie.

"Checkmate," Equius taunted, dropping onto Karkat's stomach with brutalizing force. The smaller troll shrieked with pain when he felt knees digging into his sensitive sides, rubbing up against his gills and meshing the delicate fibers together with horrifying pressure. Fingers curled around one wrist, then the other, and then he was helpless.

Karkat thrashed to the best of his ability. Equius's attention was fully on him, though, fully on _restraining_ him, and there was no way he could escape. "E-Equius!" he rasped. "Fuck, just—!"

The troll smirked with a mouthful of broken fangs and leaned back just slightly, his free hand drawing back in preparation to end him. "It's nothing personal, Karkat. Honestly."

Karkat's eyes went wide. Equius was still leering down at him, fangs jagged and crusted over with yellow, and the place where his hand was locking his wrists together was sticky with sweat. His fingers curled into a deadly fist.

And then, just as Equius's entire body tensed in preparation to strike, he froze, wobbled, and collapsed.

Karkat stared, uncomprehending. _What the fuck just…?_

A flicker of orange hooked around Equius's shoulders and threw him to the side, where he lay completely motionless. And from this angle, Karkat could see with startling clarity that there was a grievous stab wound right over the place where his blood pusher would have been.

Someone moved above him. Reached down and took his hand, pulling him to his feet. "See? I told you that you could trust me."

 _Fucking Dirk Strider._

Dirk steadied him with a hand when he almost pitched over, asking, "Are you okay?"

Karkat glared. His gills were still screaming from where they'd been so brutally mashed, his wrists burned an angry, purplish red, and his entire body just _ached._ "I'm fucking incredible, you miserable fuckass! I just _love_ being smashed into the ground by someone I used to trust!"

Dirk rolled his eyes. "It worked, didn't it? Getting him distracted, then flash stepping up and running him through before he had the chance to realize what was happening."

"Oh, is _that_ what was happening? I thought you just ran off to go grab a fucking snack!"

"No you didn't. Now come on, we've got to get back to the lab. They'll be outmatched there."

Karkat's stomach dropped. The lab was where Gamzee was. Where his quadrants were.

"Hey," Dirk said, sealing a comforting hand to his shoulder. "You'll be fine, dude. And I just proved that you can trust me, didn't I? If something happens, I've got your back—as long as _you_ have _my_ back."

He glared. Openly, furiously, he glared. But Dirk had more than proved his worth here, and even though he wasn't sure he'd ever forgive him for what had happened between them back in the beginning of their miserable story, he thought that he would do whatever he could to make sure that no one else was lost.

"Yeah," Karkat grumbled. "I've got your back."

The corners of Dirk's lips twitched upwards. "Good. Now let's go save our friends from a killer clown."

†††

When things fell apart, John realized, they fell apart _fast._

Jane was dead. Jane was dead, and so were Tavros and Nepeta and Jade and Jake, and when Roxy followed in a desperate attempt to save Callie and Sollux from Eridan's sudden attempt to level the lab, John felt the air prickle with heartbreak on his behalf and victory on Gamzee's, for the troll knew that the tides had just turned in his favor.

"You take Gamzee," John had told Dave, darting over to confront Eridan as Terezi appeared over the horizon on her metal wings. _You take Gamzee,_ knowing that it wouldn't be enough. Knowing that as Terezi approached and Eridan continued to try to level the lab, it wasn't going to be enough.

There was a pained cry, and Dave was down.

"Handle Eridan until Dave wakes up," John hissed to Terezi as she finally arrived, shooting backwards to stop Gamzee from entering the lab and taking out their communications hub and their tracking capabilities, with Sollux and Callie along with them. And Terezi just nodded grimly at him, the person that could have been his kismesis proving just how worthy she was as she faced down Eridan with the full knowledge that she was most likely facing down her death.

John tackled Gamzee with all his strength, avoiding a blow that would have ripped his head off, and just barley managed to stop him from barging into the lab. Behind him, many things happened at once.

There was a deep, horrible laugh, a taunting sneer, and the sound of ripping flesh. There was a horrified scream in a familiar voice. There was the sound of metal grinding off of the shell of Ahab's Crosshairs. There was a pained yelp in a fishy accent.

Everything shifted.

"Karkat!" John exclaimed, whipping around Gamzee and keeping him distracted while still managing to throw a glance to his moirail, who was locked in combat with Eridan, Dirk at his side.

Karkat didn't respond. He just stepped over Terezi's body and lashed out, sickles flashing in the dull light and carving out gouges in Eridan's flesh. He was spattered with blood, a sickening mishmash of blue and candy red, and he looked exhausted. He was still on his feet, though, still fighting with everything he had, and John's heart twisted at the thought of losing him.

And then Gamzee nearly brained him, and his attention was snapped back to the present as he realized just what he was trying to do. Namely, stopping Gamzee from ruining what remained of their plan.

 _"Please_ tell me that my insufferable fuckass of a matesprit is just temporarily dead," Karkat called, appearing to have regained his breath enough to speak.

"What?" Then John looked down, saw the way Dave was starting to wake up again, and said, "Oh, he's fine! Dave, come on, wake up!"

Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. Dave just groaned, rolling onto his side weakly as consciousness started to return to him.

"This is no time for pleasant conversation!" Dirk bit out, batting Karkat over the head in a chastising manner in between his attempts to take Eridan's head off. "You two can cuddle later, so fight now!"

It was hard to argue with that.

Time blurred again. John kept throwing nervous glances back at Karkat, remembering that he wasn't much for fighting, but he seemed to be holding his own to the best of his ability. Dirk was there to help him, flash stepping this way and that and doing everything he could to make sure Eridan was distracted from causing any harm to either Karkat or the lab. Meanwhile John did the same to Gamzee, with Dave's help once he was awake again. They held their own, the four of them distracting the two highbloods, but it was obvious that they were _just_ doing that— _distracting_ _them_. Eridan and Gamzee were strong, if slightly battered from their earlier fights, and all four of their opponents were beaten down and breathless.

 _This isn't good,_ John thought—and it only got a hell of a lot worse when Rose sent out an all call, choking on what could only have been her own blood as she rasped, _"Kanaya is dead. I have to retreat."_

Everyone froze for just a heartbeat as that information kicked in. Then Gamzee snarled, Eridan tried to rip Karkat's head off with his claws, and they realized that they were still in the middle of a battle. A battle they were _losing._

 _"I'm fleeing back to the lab,"_ Rose went on, pausing to cough miserably. _"Feferi isn't far behind, but maybe I can help one of you take out Eridan or Gamzee before she arrives, so the odds will be more in our favor."_

That wasn't likely, John knew. Rose sounded like she was drowning in her own blood; she'd probably be useless in a fight right about now.

"This is really bad," Dave ground out, echoing what everyone was thinking. And it was. Everything was falling apart around them, and there was _nothing anyone could do about it._

"What the fuck are we supposed to do?" Karkat demanded. John risked taking his eyes off Gamzee to look over, and his heart sank when he saw that Eridan had managed to rip his claws down his moirail's face, leaving three lines of oozing scarlet across his cheek.

"Figure it out later; keep your eyes on the battle _now!"_ Dirk snapped, and everyone winced as his katana ground off the metal of Eridan's gun.

"Oh, no," Eridan sneered, "feel free to continue glubbin' at your leisure." Then he shot once, twice, and Dirk dragged Karkat to the ground to avoid being burned to a crisp.

"John, _you_ need to pay attention too," Dave hissed, and John's gaze snapped back to their struggle against Gamzee. He was _really_ sick of fighting Gamzee—but if they couldn't win they'd be _dead,_ and that was enough of a motivator to keep him moving as the troll flailed at him.

It was the only thing they could do.

†††

Karkat's entire body ached horribly as he dodged around yet another deadly blast of plasma, courtesy of one Eridan Ampora. Not twenty feet behind him John and Dave were locked in combat with Gamzee, and Sollux's hissing in his ear told him that Rose and Feferi were close. _So few of us left,_ he thought. _So many dead._

Dirk kicked Eridan's gun with all his strength, the barrel dipping to the side as the human swung his katana with all his strength. The blade glanced off Eridan's skin, leaving a sizable gash in his shoulder that introduced a steady stream of violet blood to the open air. He'd already lost _so much blood._ Karkat cursed highbloods' incredible durability.

"Karkat _,_ _help!_ " Dirk called. Eridan's boot had just driven into his shin, and he was staggering backwards with a low groan.

He snapped out of it. Everyone was fighting, everyone was struggling for their _lives_ , and he had to help _now_. And that was what he did, whipping forward with all the strength he had left and grappling with Eridan, sickles flashing, blades flickering back and forth. He was really no match for Eridan. He was certain that if it was just him against the sea troll, he would have been reduced to a candy red smudge on the ground a long time ago. But Dirk was there, distracting him and slashing into his thick skin and making him _seethe,_ and it was just enough to help Karkat stay alive.

That didn't mean things were going well, though.

Karkat could see it all around him. He saw the way Dirk was slowing down just slightly with every time he was forced to flash step, chest heaving faster and faster as Eridan shot at him and clawed at him and tried to take his head clean off. He saw the way John's eyes gleamed with desperation as he drew away from one of Gamzee's vicious attacks, breath hitching as his speed failed him and he caught a faceful of claws. He saw the way Dave's shades, cracked and dusty from the battle, failed to conceal just how hopeless he felt as he flitted about Gamzee, visibly fatigue-burned and combat-weary.

And then Rose arrived, and he saw it even more.

She was in no condition to fight. Feferi had somehow managed to hook her claws into her stomach, it seemed, and had ripped up with all her strength until the slashes tapered off at the throat. Rose's insides were right where they should be, thankfully, but only because she had both hands curled around her torso in a desperate attempt to keep herself alive. This wouldn't be a heroic or just death, Karkat knew—she'd be _fine—_ but she was obviously trying to keep herself on her feet for as long as possible. She still felt like she needed to help. Needed to make sure that Kanaya's death hadn't been in vain.

"Rose!" John cried out, and for a moment everyone froze.

Rose smiled at them shakily. "John…good to see you're not dead." Then she keeled over and was still.

 _Oh, fuck. We are so,_ so _fucked._

Then Feferi appeared, hot on Rose's heels and ready to murder anyone in her way, and they really _were_ fucked.

"John, take the fish troll!" Dave snapped, wincing as Gamzee's club shrieked off his sword and dented the soft earth at his feet.

John didn't even offer a verbal response, but launched himself towards Feferi and swept her up in a gust of wind, diverting her attention from the lab. Not that it mattered anymore, Karkat thought—who cared if their communications went out now? Who cared if they lost their ability to track the trolls? They were all here, anyway. What did it matter?

"We can't do this," Dirk gasped, and the grim silence that met his words was all the confirmation they needed to know that he was _right._

All of their earpieces buzzed in unison. Sollux was in the communications room. _"You should run."_

"We can't run!" John protested. "If we try, they'll turn their attention on the village!"

"Sure will," Eridan snarled. "Then we'll track all of you down and krill you, one by one."

 _"If you stay, they'll kill you now and then go for the villagers anyways."_

He had a point, Karkat knew. If they were being smart about this, they _would_ run. But the humans weren't smart. The humans were fucking _heroic,_ gogdamn them, and they would stay. And if John and Dave stayed, so would he. He couldn't abandon the quadrants that he'd fought so hard to keep.

"We're not leaving," Dave growled, though his tone was strained. "If we have to die a thousand times to beat these bastards, then so be it."

 _"That sounds real fucking great, Dave—but there's one among you that doesn't get to come back."_

The hairs on the back of Karkat's neck stood up as three pairs of eyes burned into him. "Don't look at me like that," he snapped. "Dirk got Jade killed in his mad quest for revenge, so he'll probably _just_ as dead as me once somebody offs him!"

That just made everyone tenser.

"Karkat…" Then John yelped, forced to backpedal as Feferi swiped her trident at him.

Karkat didn't need to hear the rest. He knew what was coming. "I'm justas invested in this shitstorm as you are," he bit out, "so don't you fucking _dare_ ask me to sit this one out!"

John probably would have insisted, but Feferi was keeping him occupied.

 _"Fuck,"_ Sollux groaned, " _you guys are ridiculous. You're really determined to fight?"_

"Determined as fuck."

Another groan, this one muffled as Sollux no doubt pressed his face into his hands. _"Okay. Yeah, fuck—okay. Then there's going to be a new plan."_

Karkat's blood pusher sparked with hope against hope. If Sollux could pull something out…

 _"You guys obviously aren't going to win this fighting one on one—so you're going to have to split off into groups again."_

"Good luck with that," Dave snorted. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there's only five of us left, and three of them. That's not enough to form groups."

 _"Trust me on this. Dirk, when Rose wakes up I want the two of you to take KK, lure FF out, and take care of her. The three of you together should be able to take her down for good."_

"Can do," Dirk said.

 _"Good. Then John, Dave, I want you to take on GZ—"_

John groaned. "Still?"

 _"It's the only option we have right now!"_

John mumbled something, probably an exhausted complaint, but Karkat's eyes narrowed as he locked onto the trunkbeast in the room.

"Sollux. What about Eridan?"

There was a lengthy pause, and Karkat's stomach flooded with dread as he realized what was about to happen.

 _"I'll hold him off while you guys take out your targets. With any luck he won't be able to get to you until you've regrouped. Then you can take him on as a team, and together you can win. Not even a highblood can stand up to all of you together."_

"Hold him off?" Karkat growled, and the anger coursing through his veins gave him enough strength to push past Eridan's defenses and slash him brutally across the face. His triumph didn't last long, though, as the sea troll threw him back with a furious roar. "Do you want to say that in a more _direct_ way, Sollux? That is, do you want to admit to everyone that you're volunteering to fucking _die?"_

 _"There's no other way, KK. If we go on like this, we die. All of us."_

"The answer isn't you _killing_ yourself, fuckass!" And gogdamn it, his voice was fucking _shaking_. Shaking as his kismesis offered himself up on a silver platter, shaking as he realized that the idiot was _right_.

"You sure about this, dude?" Dave asked, tone low and grave. "There's no coming back from what you're offering to do."

Sollux's voice was firm, determined. _"I'm sure."_

And then Karkat's blood pusher shattered into pieces as he realized that he was going to lose one of his quadrants after all.

 _"I'll give you as much time as I can manage. The instant Rose is awake, you go."_

"Sollux…" Karkat hissed.

 _"Don't complain, KK. Not now."_

He heard it. He heard the slightest shake in his voice, the hint of pain that told him that Sollux wasn't as fearless as he pretended to be. His kismesis was fucking _terrified,_ and it cut him to the core. "Yeah," he rasped, knowing that trying to console him would only make things worse. "Yeah, okay. Let's do this."

Then they were fighting again, Sollux's words ringing in their ears, and every moment blurred into an eternity. The fight was nothing but a mesh of motion and pain and desperation, and as Dirk and Karkat clawed at Eridan, John swiped at Feferi, and Dave wrestled with Gamzee, each of them grappled with the knowledge that soon they would act, and it was entirely possible that this would be the end for all of them.

Finally, Rose's eyes opened. They opened, and she blinked in confusion as she pushed herself to her feet, and it was time to go.

The situation was explained in between trying not to be killed by angry trolls, and Rose's expression turned dark as she understood what was going to happen.

"Very well," she whispered. "Sollux…good luck."

 _"Yeah, yeah. Just take your team and get out of here, and for fuck's sake, keep my kismesis safe."_

Rose nodded curtly. "I can do that. Dirk, Karkat, are you with me?

Dirk nodded. "Let's lure her out." Then he paused. "Karkat, you coming?"

"In a moment," he promised. "Sollux isn't here yet, genius— _someone_ has to keep on Eridan until he arrives. You two get Feferi out of here, and I'll follow as soon as I can."

"No way," Dirk said immediately. "I'll stay, you go with Feferi."

"No."

Dirk's features contorted with rage, and his lips parted to snap out a response, but Rose beat him to it.

"Dirk, leave him. John and Dave will make sure nothing bad happens until Sollux arrives." She shot him a pitying look, and Karkat couldn't have been more thankful that she understood.

Dirk didn't look happy, but he obeyed. A moment later John was switching targets to help with Eridan as Dirk and Rose tackled Feferi and drew her out, and despite the fact that Feferi must have heard their plan—they were talking about it out loud, for fuck's sake—she went along with them without protest. And that, Karkat knew, wasn't a good sign. If the trolls weren't trying to offset their plan, that meant they thought it wouldn't work. And maybe they were right. Maybe it really _wouldn't_ work.

Whatever the reason, no one was fighting it. Feferi willingly followed Rose and Dirk when they lured her away, and Karkat and John took turns swiping at Eridan as Sollux presumably headed their way.

"ED!"

Eridan froze, fins flaring outwards as his eyes locked onto Sollux as he stood in the doorway of the lab. "Sol. How delightful to see you again."

"Can't say the same to you," Sollux snapped. He prowled forward, char-black eyes staring into nothing, a rusted machete clutched in one hand. It wasn't anything Karkat had ever seen him wield before; it must have been a relic buried away in his sylladex. Who knew Sollux even _had_ a bladekind strife specibus?

"Sollux?" Karkat whispered. Everyone had stilled, even Gamzee, staring at the impending train wreck.

"You've done your job, KK," Sollux growled. "Now get out of here." He moved forward, face turned towards Eridan, and it was time for everything to fall apart again. "Think you can take me?" the troll snarled.

Eridan's eyes narrowed. "I _know_ I can."

"Then let's see you try, fishface."

Then the two of them were off, Sollux scrambling off into the village at top speed as Eridan screeched and fired after him, and Karkat knew that at the very least his kismesis was going to put up a fight.

"You heard him, Vantas," Dave said gruffly. Gamzee was moving again, ready to continue the fight, and John swept back to meet him. "Get out of here and find where Rose and Dirk have led Feferi."

Karkat nodded and moved backward, heading in the direction his friends had vanished. But then he paused and looked back, and his blood pusher throbbed.

John wailed as Gamzee's club crushed into his ribs. Dave hissed as a set of claws raked across his shoulder. Gamzee laughed as the two staggered backwards.

Karkat turned his head away. Rose and Dirk were waiting for him…if he stayed, he would just get in the way.

"Stay down, motherfuckers! I don't care if you're god tier, I'll kill you as many times as it motherfucking takes!"

Anger swelled in his chest. _No. You won't take them from me, not for a moment._

He turned back. His knuckles were white around the grips of his sickles, arms locked stiff at his sides, every line of his body painted with tension.

 _Don't do this,_ something whispered deep within him. _You'll only cause them pain, and yourself misery. There is no reason for you to stay, not now any more than there was when this battle began. Please, walk away now. Please._

John screamed as Gamzee managed to jab the blunt end of his club into his stomach.

 _Walk away, Karkat._

Gamzee cackled. "You wanna be next, my squishy pink bro?"

He was talking to Dave. To his matesprit.

 _Let it go._

"Can't wait to see how those insides spill out across the ground…"

 _Please. Please._

Dave gasped, diving out of the way to avoid a crushing blow. He was trying to lure Gamzee away, but the juggalo was holding his ground.

 _Please, let it go._

Gamzee laughed again, low and rasping, and something clicked into place inside Karkat's head. Something dark, something vicious, something _angry._ Something that finally made him understand.

 _When the time comes, you will know what to do._

It was something that had been whispered to him long ago, in a dream he barely remembered, by a person he hadn't recognized. Was this what that strange person had meant? It had been so many weeks ago, but it just felt _right._ This had to be what he was supposed to do.

What he was supposed to do was step forward, sickles disappearing into his sylladex, and call out for the troll that had once been his moirail. "Gamzee!"

The troll raised his head with a crooked grin. "Hmm? You want in on the action, Karbro?"

John let out a wheezing gasp, but he was still sprawled out across the ground. "K-Karkat, no!"

"Leave!" Dave begged, though he too was struggling to rise. All it did was make him realize that he _couldn't_ go to Dirk and Rose, because if he did then Gamzee was going to tear John and Dave limb from limb and wreck first the lab, then the village.

 _They need a distraction. A moment to get their breath back._

Karkat took slow, even steps forward, circling Gamzee with as much courage as he could muster. "This is about me, right? From the very beginning, all you wanted was to hurt me. All you wanted was to kill me, to take revenge for what I'd done to you. Is that right?"

"Of course it is, best friend! You were supposed to be my motherfucking moirail, then my kismesis, but you just all up and cluckbeasted out of that, didn't you? Now, I don't want get all cliché on you, but it seems to me that if you're not gonna give me what I want, I might as well just kill you. Fair deal, Karbro?"

No, that was _not_ a fair deal. Not at all.

"Sounds fair to me," he managed, though his throat was beginning to close up. "But I've got a question for you, Gamzee."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"Just how badly do you want to take revenge?"

The troll frowned. "What?"

"You heard me." Karkat paced forward. One step, two. "How badly do you want to kill me?"

"How badly—?"

"Do you want to kill me enough to chase me down?"

Gamzee narrowed his eyes "Is that a challenge, motherfucker?"

Karkat bared his teeth. "What if it is?"

A low rumble started up in the back of Gamzee's throat, too soft to have any effect. His clubs vanished into his sylladex.

 _That's a yes, then._

Gamzee's entire body locked itself tight with tension. His expression turned to stone. He was going to attack. He was going to attack and tear him apart.

Karkat turned, legs burning even before he took his first step, and _ran._

John and Dave were screaming behind him. Begging him to stop, to come back, to save himself—but it was too late for that. He was already running, exhausted and battered though he was, and Gamzee was already loping after him at a pace that was neither hurried nor relaxed. It was a pace of determination, of knowing that he'd already won. Once he caught Karkat—and he _would—_ it would all be over.

 _I have to lure him away. I have to lure him to the cliffs behind my hive. Get him away from the lab, the town, and to a place where John and Dave can take him on without worrying about the villagers. I'm the only one that can tempt him away from them. I have to do it._

And so that was what he did. He crashed through the forest towards the cliffs, hoping that John and Dave would get there in time and push Gamzee right the fuck over the edge. He didn't want to diehere, he just wanted to get Gamzee away from the lab and the village, away from his matesprit and his moirail just long enough to let them get in a breath.

He heard the ocean. He heard it, and then he burst out through the trees and onto the cliffside, turning just in time to see Gamzee skitter to a halt not ten feet behind him. They were alone.

"Now this is more like it," Gamzee purred, and Karkat felt his stomach lurch sickeningly at the look in those indigo eyes. "Just the two of us, Karbro. Perfect for taking care of our unfinished business."

 _What, unfinished business like you killing me?_

Gamzee stalked closer, clubs twirling at his fingertips. "So how are we gonna up and do this, motherfucker? You gonna put up a fight, or am I gonna just swing my club and kill you?"

Karkat held up his sickles in response. He would do everything he could to take Gamzee down until John and Dave were able to help. It wouldn't work, but he still had to try.

 _This is for the best,_ he reminded himself. _Gamzee was about to tear John and Dave apart and move on to the town. If I hadn't intervened…_

Gamzee smirked at the sight of his sickles rising to protect his chest. "A fight it is, Karbro," he purred. Then he was flickering forward like a long, wiry shadow, clubs lashing out with incredible strength. And Karkat…

Karkat was helpless against it. He'd known Gamzee was stronger than him, but he hadn't known just _how_ much stronger he really was until he was being beaten into the ground relentlessly. He was highblood strong, stronger than _Eridan._

"Just like old times," Gamzee chuckled once Karkat found himself pinned beneath him, the troll's knees digging into his forearms and keeping them fixed at his sides, his weight settled across his hips and rendering all struggling with his lower body ineffective. He was trapped like a butterfly in a box, pins stuck into his wings and holding him immobile.

It was all coming back to him, he realized. That horrible night in the relaxation block, Gamzee looming over him, pinning him to the ground, raking his claws down his sides and breaking his fingers one by one, whispering poison in his ear. Fear was prickling down his spine at the mere thought of it, the pressure at his hips and forearms sending him back into that dreaded memory.

"Now…" Karkat couldn't hold back a whimper as the clown troll released one of his arms just long enough to get his claws hooked around it, holding the appendage up so that Karkat had a good view of his own hand. "Should we just pick up where we left off?" Biting claws pinched his index finger.

 _No…_ Karkat swallowed hard, refusing to let his fear bubble to the surface. He thrashed weakly. And then he _really_ thrashed, a whine building low in his throat as Gamzee put more and more pressure on the delicate bones. He kicked and scrambled and bit, and the only thing that stopped him was a blinding blow to the head that left his vision white and his think pan reeling. Gamzee had smashed the back of his head into the ground, and that highblood strength was more than enough to daze him soundly.

"There we go, my little miracle," Gamzee snarled. He hadn't actually broken the bone yet, hadn't done anything more than hit him and pin him down, but Karkat was already gasping for breath as if he were being tortured. "What, nothing to say to your favorite palemate?"

It was a joke and he knew it. He shook his head to the best of his ability, groaning when his entire world spun.

"There we go," Gamzee chuckled. "Wouldn't want me to have to all up and growl at you again, would we?"

Karkat's stomach dropped. _That's right…one sound and I'll be reduced to a puddle._ In his panic to lure Gamzee away before he ruined everything, he'd almost forgotten.

Gamzee shifted atop him just enough to remind him of his situation, and he realized that he may very well be dead long before John and Dave regained their strength enough to fight Gamzee off. Maybe they'd just never find him at all, running in circles in their attempts to figure out where he'd gone. But no…they'd _seen_ which way he'd fled; they couldn't be too far behind.

 _And what if they made a mistake? What if they saw incorrectly, or they're too slow, or something goes wrong? What if I miscalculated and they're too weak to follow me?_ The thought terrified him, and he realized that he was letting out a low, desperate keen. The sound was instinctual, a plea without words for his aggressor to let him go—but there was no way it was going to work, and so all it did was make him feel weak.

"Don't be like that!" Gamzee crooned. He cupped Karkat's cheeks with both hands, offering him a fanged smile. "I'm not about to kill you, best friend, so there's no need to be all motherfucking terrified just yet."

"N-not about to…?"

"Aww, look at you just shaking!" Gamzee was patting at his cheeks now, a twisted display of pale romance amidst a sea of black. "Don't worry, Karbro, you're not gonna die until you've watched _all_ your motherfucking quadrants go up in flames."

It wasn't very comforting, to say the least.

"But that doesn't mean we can't have some motherfucking _fun,_ now, does it?"

Karkat had only a moment for those words to register before Gamzee was whipping a club up into the air and jabbing the end down hard into his stomach, the same maneuver he'd pulled on John. He would have screamed, but all the breath was drawn out of him and scattered to the winds—and so he just gasped breathlessly, choking on nothing as Gamzee leaned close and watched his face with fascination.

"Motherfucking _miracles,"_ the troll breathed. The light taps at his face were back, sending sick pulses of pale comfort jolting right down to his stomach. Gamzee was _not_ his moirail; he had no right to be touching him like this. But that wasn't stopping him, fingertips brushing against his cheeks and _mocking_ him.

 _I want John…_

"What's that?" Gamzee snarled, and Karkat realized he'd spoken aloud. _"What did you just motherfucking say?"_

Claws. There were claws at his throat, claws prickling at his skin and just barely puncturing the surface, claws ripping _slowly_ through his flesh and tracing down to where his collarbone vanished into the top of his shirt. He screamed, breath hitching raggedly, kicking and twisting with every scrap of strength that remained in his body.

"Motherfucker, cut it the motherfuck out!" Gamzee snarled.

Karkat didn't listen. He struggled, feeling those claws move up to press at the space just below his eyes, threatening at digging in, flailing his arms and thrashing and baring his teeth, a stuttering growl taking the place of his distressed keen.

"I said cut it _out."_

Claws pricked at the flesh beneath his eyes, beginning to slice in, and Karkat's vision wavered as he realized that Gamzee was going to take his sight from him.

"I motherfucking _warned_ you, Karbro." A low, rumbling sound sliced through the air, and Karkat went limp.

That _growl…_ it reverberated through his body, clenching every cell and kneading every muscle until it turned to mush. His body felt like it had turned into a liquid. _Fuck,_ he thought dazedly. _I'm so…_

"That's a good little motherfucker," Gamzee purred, and Karkat's blood pusher dropped as he realized that he wasn't _completely_ subdued—Gamzee had left him just enough strength to struggle weakly because he _wanted_ to feel him struggle, because it was some kind of sick power play for the bastard. Karkat could move, drag his limbs sluggishly about in an attempt to throw him off, but his think pan wasn't all there. _Submit,_ it whispered. _You are his._

Except he wasn't. He was John's, he was Dave's, he was even _Sollux's_ , for gog's sake, and he had no room in his quadrants for someone like Gamzee.

When he heard a familiar voice slice through the fog, soft and caring and _comforting,_ those thoughts were only reaffirmed.

"Karkat!"

Then there was a blast of wind, and Gamzee's form was torn right off him. Unfortunately, that also meant that the troll's claws were wrenched right out of his neck, leaving shallow furrows in their wake.

"Oh god _, oh god_ —Karkat, are you okay?"

John was running towards him, Dave hot on his heels, and then their hands were on him. Their hands were on him, one pair on his chest, one pair across his neck, and he realized how this must look. Blood at his throat, splayed out limp across the ground as Gamzee loomed over him.

"I'm fine," he managed, and his voice was horrifyingly slurred.

"Dave, his neck!"

The fingers at his throat fluttered frantically across the scratches, then Dave was saying, "It's cool, dude—they aren't deep."

Someone's hands batted at his face. The turmoil in Karkat's stomach faded. _John._

"Why's he like that?" John asked miserably. Then, "Karkat? Come on, you can hear me, can't you?"

He nodded blearily.

"Not good," John recognized in a low whimper, and his cool fingertips were back to brushing across his cheeks, his eyelids, his lips. "This is what happened the last time he faced Gamzee, and he wasn't better for _hours."_

"Well, we don't have hours!" Dave bit out. He was gesturing wildly at the edge of the cliff, where Gamzee was righting himself with a growl. "We have minutes at most, and he's vulnerable as fuck right now!"

"Then let's get him out of here!"

"N-no!" Karkat hissed. "No—just drag me to the edge of the forest or some shit, I'll be fine in a few minutes." He was weak, limbs rubbery, but he could feel that it wasn't as bad as it had been last time. It wouldn't be long before he could get up.

Dave stared, expression completely flat despite his obvious concern. "You sure?"

"Certain, Strider—now get me the fuck over there and then tear that clown apart!"

Dave scooped him up. John lurched forward. Gamzee attacked.

Everything swirled into a mess of blood and steel.

†††

Feferi, Dirk found, was a tough one to handle. He was glad that Karkat had apparently decided to follow his heart, leaving her well enough alone.

She was wickedly powerful, trident whirling with deadly force, jagged horns enough to keep anyone at bay who got too close. That didn't mean she was invincible, though—and together, Rose and Dirk were a formidable team.

"Move!" Rose called out, and Dirk flash stepped to one side as a bolt of white magic seared the ground, lashing like a whip across Feferi's arms and leaving a searing trail of fuchsia blood behind. Feferi didn't even seem to feel it, though. She just growled low in her throat and _leapt,_ and Rose had to dart out of the way to avoid being impaled.

 _We will win this._

Dirk lashed out with his katana and cut a deep slash into Feferi's hip that she was almost fast enough to dodge, but not quite. Her trident flashed, batted him back, left stinging cuts on his knuckles.

 _We have to win._

Rose blasted her with magic again and again, and only _most_ of the bolts were deflected off of a spinning trident. The ones that weren't caught the troll on the shoulder, then on the arm, the chest, the back of the head. It wasn't enough, not yet.

 _We have to._

Dirk pushed himself to his limit. Feferi was bleeding from multiple wounds now, scorched in several places that made moving difficult. She still did it, though, did it enough to bat his katana into the ground as he attacked but not enough to stop him from punching her solidly in the temple. She reeled, caught off guard.

 _Now._

Rose darted in, Dirk's foot planted on Feferi's trident and holding it to the ground, and a flash of white light filled the air as the troll's dominant arm was seared clean off.

"That was for Kanaya," Rose hissed, and Dirk had never seen her so angry. "You _monster!"_

Dirk stood back, and Rose made her pay.

When Rose finally stepped back, she was covered with a fine spray of fuchsia, and the land around them was painted until only a few specs of grass showed through the gore. Feferi lay on the ground before her, but she was unrecognizable, ripped limb from limb and beaten to a pulp. Dead.

"Well," Rose huffed, flicking blood off of her fingertips, "that was certainly a good way to relieve stress."

Dirk nodded, unsettled. Rose was always so calm…it was strange to see how quickly she'd snapped. Then again, this troll _had_ killed her girlfriend. Perhaps this was what she deserved.

Rose plucked a rag out of her sylladex and started wiping off the blood. "It looks like we may have turned the tides back in our favor, if only for a moment. We should take advantage of this."

"…Right."

Rose raised a hand to her earpiece. She fiddled with it for a moment, then frowned. "Communications are down, and so are the trackers. Eridan must have returned to destroy the lab."

That meant that Sollux was probably dead, but neither of them said anything about it. Now wasn't the time to think about such things.

"Well then," Rose said. "If communications are down, that means we'll just have to return to the lab and start dealing with Eridan. John, Dave, and Karkat will join us once they've won, I assume."

 _If_ they won. But again, neither of them said a thing, and in a moment's time they were flying off for the lab in search of their next opponent.

†††

 _We made it._

Aradia felt the world around her shift suddenly as she finally passed through the other end of the black hole, Vriska at her side. It had taken what felt like days, but at last they had reached the new planet. She just hoped they weren't too late.

But by the looks of things…too late didn't even _begin_ to cover it.

"Dear jegus," Vriska breathed, "what _happened_ here?"

Aradia could do nothing but shake her head in response. All around them, down every street of the village and around every corner, there was nothing but destruction. Someone had taken some kind of massive weapon to the buildings, and had torn them up and littered the streets with the bodies of dersites and prospitarians. Blood was everywhere, and the scent of it clogged Aradia's throat.

Vriska was still spluttering, horrified. "What…?"

"We're too late." That was the most she could manage, and even that was enough to make Vriska's expression crumple.

"Do you think they're all dead?" _Do you think Terezi is dead?_

"We don't know who's still alive," Aradia said. She was forcing her voice to remain steady, but her insides were twisted with grief. If one of the spirits had managed to do this, that meant that none of their friends had been able to stop them. There weren't enough of them left to cover each individual target.

"Well then," Vriska said through clenched teeth, "let's look for who did this and anyone that's still alive."

She didn't want to see. Aradia knew that if they looked, all they would find would be a plethora of dead bodies. But there was nothing else she could do. Solluxwas out here somewhere. Her moirail was waiting, and she couldn't just abandon him.

 _Sollux…please be okay._

The first one they came across was Equius, head lobbed nearly off his shoulders in one, clean blow. Nepeta was at his side, skull crushed in. The sight of them made both trolls tense, but neither said a thing as they flew inland. From what Sollux had said, the lab was near the center of town. They would do well to head there before doing anything else, seeing as it was a base of operations.

Jade was next. As they searched to the east, they found the human sprawled out with a hole in her stomach. _Eridan,_ Aradia thought—and when they came across Jane and Jake in much the same manner, her suspicions were confirmed.

Kanaya rested to the southwest, three piercings spaced equally apart through her chest. Flying just slightly up took them to the next site of battle, and…

 _Oh, Tavros…_

Vriska landed beside his mangled body, wings drooping as she stared down at him silently. Her eyes flashed with something that could have been guilt. But then she was back off the ground, wings fluttering anew, and her expression was dark as she said, "Come on. No use in grieving the dead."

Aradia didn't agree, but she listened anyways. The two of them spiraled inwards, and it wasn't long until they were at the fringes of town. The lab was visible in the distance, a large, gray building that rose above all the rest, and they flew there with haste, searching for _anyone_ that was still alive.

Roxy was sprawled out not too far outside the building, body showing evidence of having been worked over by Eridan.

And then there was Terezi.

Vriska didn't say a thing when she saw her moirail splayed across the ground with a grievous wound ripped into her chest. She just clenched her fists silently, and cerulean tears clung to her lashes. Another one dead. _So many dead._

But even after seeing so much death, so much destruction, nothing prepared Aradia for seeing a smear of mustard blood streaked across the ground, trailing off towards an area of the village that had been nearly leveled.

"Oh no," Aradia whispered. Then she was at top speed as she dashed along the trail, and—

 _Oh no…Sollux…_

Aradia dropped to her knees beside her moirail, gobs of thick, sticky blood soaking into her pants. "Sollux," she whispered, reaching out and pressing the palm of her hand against his cheek. She wasn't expecting a response. Sollux had lost so much blood, was so limp and lifeless…

But then there was a groan, and hope sparked in her chest. "AA?" he spluttered weakly. Then he laughed, and it was a sound thick and choking with blood. "Eheh…am I dead already?"

"Shush," she breathed, soothing her hands along his bloodied chest. She winced as she felt the place where the skin and muscle dipped away into nothing, the place where Eridan had blasted a hole through him. No one could survive this. "It's okay, Sollux, you're okay…"

He rasped out another laugh that quickly turned into a coughing fit. "You're a terrible liar, AA."

His eyes were black. Missing. And his fangs…

"Sollux," she whispered. "Sollux, which of us are left?"

He gave a full-body shudder, then gasped from the pain. "KK," he groaned. "KK is out there somewhere, and…and ED and GZ and FF, as far as I know, all going against us."

"Who's on our side?" Aradia pressed. "Sollux, _please."_

It looked like he was having a hard time speaking. Beginning to fade. "John and Dave, I think. And then…Rose and Dirk. Callie should be in the lab still."

"That's all?" Vriska asked from a few feet away, but Sollux didn't seem to hear her.

"Hey, AA…"

"Yes, Sollux?"

"Will you do me a favor?"

She nodded, pulling her moirail's head into her lap. It was useless, she knew—Sollux would die with wounds like this; there was no getting around it. But still…if she could comfort him…

Sollux coughed, spattering blood down his chin. Aradia wiped it away silently. "S-save KK, will you?"

She blinked. "Karkat?"

"Y-yeah," he spluttered. "Just…make sure he's okay. He's not really a fighter, and I sent him to fight FF."

"You sent Karkat up against Feferi?" Aradia asked, alarmed. "She'll tear him apart!"

"Rose and Dirk should be with him," Sollux explained. His chest was heaving now, breath becoming harder and harder to draw. His fingers scrabbled uselessly at the dirt. "Just help him, _please…_ a-and help John and Dave take down GZ." He practically wailed as his entire body seized with pain. "And ED…h-he's out there somewhere."

Aradia's eyes flicked up to meet Vriska's.

"You don't even have to ask," Vriska said, raising a hand. "I'll find fishface and take him down, no sweat. The guy's a loser; it'll take all of three seconds if I get a lucky roll. And I _always_ get a lucky roll."

She vanished in a whirlwind, and Aradia was left cradling the body of her doomed moirail.

"AA," Sollux groaned. "Please, you have to go."

She bristled. "I won't leave you!"

 _"Please,"_ he begged shakily. "AA, my kismesis is out there right now, maybe about to fucking _die,_ and…" He trailed off in order to choke on his own blood.

Aradia's blood pusher twisted painfully in her chest. "Sollux, are you sure?"

"Just _go!"_

She took a deep breath. Held Sollux as tightly as she could. Pressed her face down into his hair. Soothed her fingertips across his cheeks. Then she extracted herself from his hold and stood, laying Sollux back upon the ground as gently as she could. "I'll make sure Karkat is safe," she promised. "He won't have to die."

Sollux smiled, and his fangs gleamed yellow with blood. "Thank you."

She offered him only a rough nod. She was shaking, knowing that her moirail was practically dead already, and she couldn't stand to look at him for another second or she'd burst into tears. But Sollux, gogdamn him, couldn't help telling her one last thing before she went.

"Pale for you, Aradia."

He'd used her full name. And something about that along with the way he was staring up at her, weak and shaking, nearly made her blood pusher crack in two. "Pale for you," she returned, and her voice was thin and tight.

Sollux laughed. "See you around, AA."

He convulsed, and Aradia forced herself to turn away. _Goodbye, Sollux._ But she couldn't say it, and then she was taking off and flying off to search for Feferi as her moirail twitched once, twice, and was still.

†††

Dave swung Gamzee around as he came just a little too close to Karkat, who was still slightly shaky on his feet, and hurled him back towards John, who blasted at him relentlessly with his windy powers. His hammer was gone now, and he was relying solely on his ability to throw Gamzee off balance while Dave slashed at him and Karkat flickered in just long enough to lash out with his sickles before slipping back out of danger.

And they _still_ weren't winning.

Dave had to dive to the side as Gamzee swiped at him with a club, rolling away when it was flung at him a moment later. John was there, then, knocking Gamzee off balance as Karkat appeared to deal him a glancing blow across the shoulder.

 _"Motherfucker!"_ Gamzee roared, infuriated. He chucked his other club at Karkat's head, and only a combination of John's powers and Karkat's quick reflexes kept it from bashing his brains out. "I'm going to fucking _kill_ you!"

He had to be wearing down. They'd been fighting for so long…

John darted around Gamzee and slammed his feet into his back, knocking him half down as Dave went for his throat. Unfortunately, Gamzee was strong—he rolled once, managing to hook his claws into Dave's dominant arm in the process, and threw both John and Dave away from him.

"You know what?" Gamzee snarled. "I think I've all up and changed my motherfucking mind! You lot are fucking impossible to deal with, so I'm just going to motherfucking kill you all here and now!"

He moved impossibly fast, and Dave's eyes widened as he realized just _where_ he was moving to.

"Karkat, get down!"

But it was too late, and Karkat could do nothing but yelp in shock as Gamzee tackled him to the ground. A horrible wail followed as the troll hooked his claws into the already torn flesh of Karkat's throat and ripped down with the intent to kill.

"Get the fuck off of him!" Dave roared, and the next moment he was blasting into Gamzee's side full force and knocking him off of Karkat. Karkat's answering scream was ear-piercing as Gamzee's claws were wrenched out of his flesh.

"You…you—!" John babbled incoherently, expression a mixture of fury and pain. "Karkat, are you—?"

"Just fucking fight!" the troll ordered, even as he staggered back, throat fountaining blood. Those cuts were _deep._

"No, no, we need to get bandages on that!" John insisted. Then he screeched as Gamzee turned his attention back on him and lunged, clubs whirling in circles in an attempt to smash his skull in.

Dave cursed softly under his breath. This was _bad_. Karkat couldn't be brought back when he died, and he was already losing a lot of blood. But Gamzee was still fighting, still flailing at them with all his strength, and there was no time to bandage the wound. There was only one solution.

"Here," Dave said, ripping his cape off at the neck and throwing it to his matesprit. "Put pressure on it!"

Karkat fumbled with the cape, but did his best with what he had.

"Oh no you don't," Gamzee snarled. He leapt again, aiming to get his claws back in Karkat's throat, and Dave had to jump in front of him to turn his attention elsewhere.

Just like that, he realized Gamzee's plan.

Karkat was down. He couldn't fight anymore. And that meant that John and Dave were left protecting him, jumping in front of him and diverting Gamzee's attention so he wouldn't kill him once and for all. Karkat had saved the village and quite possibly _them_ in luring Gamzee away, but now they were left defending him with everything they had.

And that meant that it would be all too easy for their deaths to turn heroic.

Gamzee was terrifyingly focused now. His entire being seemed to be honed in on Karkat, and he was throwing himself forward with reckless abandon in an attempt to get at him. Their battle had turned into a game of keepaway.

Dave did his best to avert Gamzee's attention while John flitted about him like a fly and blasted him with air rhythmically. It was the same strategy they'd been using since the beginning, and it didn't work any better now than it had then. This time, though, something was truly at stake. And that something was starting to look light headed, swaying back and forth on his knees as he struggled to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. Dave's cape was soaked through.

It all happened so _fast_. One moment everything was fine, and the next Dave was choking on blood as Gamzee managed to slam a club into his chest with impossible strength, putting him on the ground and rolling him a good ten feet to the side. His head spun, the breath knocked right out of him and refusing to return.

Then there was just Gamzee, and John, and Karkat.

Gamzee laughed, and he threw his whole body into the sound. "Checkmate, motherfuckers."

Dave frowned, opening his mouth to ask what he meant—but then he didn't have to, because it was happening right in front of him.

It was quick. _So_ quick.

Gamzee moved like a serpent, wiry and strong as he darted right around John's defenses and dove for Karkat like a wild animal, claws outstretched, teeth bared. And then—and _then—_

And then Karkat screamed, unable to defend himself, as Gamzee's fangs dug into his tattered throat, ripping the cape away and sealing to bare flesh, claws piercing firmly through his victim's shoulders and holding him immobile.

Dave gasped out a sound that was trying to be Karkat's name, but his breath was still knocked away and he couldn't so much as lift a finger as he was forced to watch Gamzee tear his matesprit apart. _John…help him!_

He did. John streaked forward with a terrified cry, latching onto Gamzee's back even as Karkat whined and writhed weakly beneath his aggressor, little hoarse cries escaping his torn throat. John's tugging only strained Gamzee's hold on the other troll, though, and Karkat's wails increased in volume with every attempt John made to save him. It was _horrible—_ and there was nothing Dave could do.

"John!" Karkat gurgled desperately, blood spurting up through his mouth.

John's eyes were watering, fogging up his glasses just slightly. "Just hang on! Oh god, Karkat, just—!"

Gamzee held tighter, and Karkat keened. "P-please…"

John was practically flattened against Gamzee's back now, scrabbling at his shoulders and struggling to pry him off his moirail, but it was _useless._

Gamzee laughed around Karkat's throat, and Dave knew too late what was about to happen.

Gamzee lurched back, taking a chunk of Karkat's flesh with him, and whirled around so fast that John was thrown off and to the ground, head cracking back against the earth and leaving him dazed. Dave tried to get up again, but failed—and then he looked to Karkat, silently beginning him to help John, but the troll was moaning weakly on the ground, lacking the strength to even cup his ruined throat.

John was on his own.

And as Dave watched, Gamzee won.

In less than a second one of Gamzee's clubs came up, poised perfectly above John's head, then came down with a sickening crack.

Just like that, it was over.

†††

Aradia ran into Rose and Dirk as they were flying back towards the lab, both looking alarmingly grim, both bristling in alarm when they saw her.

"Are you alive?" Rose demanded, drawing to a halt with her wands held aloft before her. Dirk seemed equally standoffish, sword poised to strike. "Or perhaps a better question would be, are you hostile?"

Aradia raised her hands soothingly. "I'm alive, and here to help. I'm Aradia Megido, in case you've forgotten in the long span of time between now and our last conversation aboard the meteor."

Rose lowered her wand at once. "Aradia? I thought you were in the furthest ring searching for Vriska!"

"I was." She dipped her head. "I arrived with Vriska some time ago. We came to help you, but it appears as if it's already too late."

"Not too late, exactly," Rose said. "We still need to handle Eridan."

"Vriska is taking care of him," Aradia replied. She peered over Rose's shoulder to Dirk, then beyond to search for Karkat. Sollux had said that he was with them, right? "Where is Karkat? Sollux requested that I make sure he was safe."

Rose frowned. "He was supposed to be with us, but we believe that he ran off to join John and Dave."

Aradia's blood ran cold. "He's not here?" _My last promise to my moirail was that I would save Karkat. If I'm too late…_

"We're looking for him and the others now," Dirk broke in. "You're free to join us, so long as Vriska doesn't need help taking down the fish dude."

"Vriska can handle Eridan," Aradia said. "We need to get to the other members of your party _now."_

They flew like their lives depended on it.

†††

"Come on, John, _please!"_ Dave begged, shaking his best friend with all his strength. But John's head just lolled to the side, cracked open violently and lying limp against the ground, and he showed no signs of awakening—and with good reason.

It had been a heroic death. It had been heroic as _fuck,_ John doing everything in his power to save his moirail, and there was no coming back from it.

Dave felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, and he forced himself to stop crying before he really got started. Now was _not_ the time. John was dead, but maybe he could still do something for Karkat.

Gamzee stepped aside with a rumbling laugh as Dave scrambled to his matesprit's side. He didn't seem interested in attacking, just watching the train wreck play out in front of him.

"Karkat," Dave whispered, hands hovering above his ruined body. Just looking at him, he could see that it was too late. Gamzee's fangs had torn his throat out, ripped it clean open, and even now the wound fountained pulse after pulse of candy red blood, running down to his chest and dripping to join the supply pooling beneath him. "Oh man, Karkat…can you hear me?"

The troll whimpered, and even that sounded like a struggle. His fingers twitched weakly as if he were trying to reach up to Dave's face, to cup his cheek, but he didn't have the strength to move. In the end he just lay there, glazed eyes turned towards the sky, mouth slightly open to allow the excess blood to drip out.

He was dying. He was dying, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Karkat," he breathed again, and he desperately wanted to pull his dying matesprit into his lap to comfort him, but he knew that moving him would probably just send him off faster. All he could do was his best to comfort Karkat with his words, because even brushing his fingertips across his flesh had the troll groaning in pain.

"Knew…we were gonna…die…like this," he gasped. "Fuck…if only we could just… _fix_ everything…"

 _Fix everything?_

Karkat's fingers twitched again as he tried to reach up. "Dave…go _back."_

"What?" he asked dumbly.

"Go back," he begged, but his voice was so soft and weak that Dave could barley hear it. "Dave… _fix this."_

Dave shook his head from side to side, fingers curling into fists at his sides. "I don't understand!"

Karkat gagged, then spat up a mouthful of blood. "P-please…please _save them…"_

"I-I don't—!"

Then Dave felt a hand twist into the back of his shirt, and he was being wrenched away from Karkat mercilessly.

"Time's up, motherfucker."

He was facing Gamzee alone. All alone, with no one around him, and his matesprit was drawing his final breaths at his back.

His time really was up.

Or at least, it would have been, if not for the cerulean blur that suddenly screeched across the sky and barreled into Gamzee, taking him off the edge of the cliff and hurling him into the ocean below, where his skull cracked open on the deadly rocks.

And just like that, it was over.

Vriska glared down at Gamzee, eyes gleaming with an emotion that could only be described as murderous. Then she looked back, expression grim, and her eyes flickered to John with a pained hiss.

"You're the only one left?" she asked, and Dave could do nothing but nod. Vriska glared at the ground. "I see. Well, Eridan's dead. I chopped his head off."

He couldn't really feel relieved. His limbs felt numb, heart beating too slowly as he walked back to Karkat and fell to his knees beside him. He didn't need to touch him to know that he was dead.

There were more voices behind him, slowly fading in, and his heart was torn in two as the remaining survivors joined him.

"Dave!" Rose was calling, Dirk echoing her call of greeting not far behind.

He didn't look up as he heard them land. Rose, Dirk, and…another troll? He vaguely recognized her. Aradia, he thought.

"Oh no…" Aradia whispered, eyes watering as they locked onto Karkat. _"No…"_

Rose looked similarly sickened as she saw John, skull cracked open, chest still. "John too?" she whispered.

Dave dipped his head, and then there was silence.

Vriska was the one that broke it. "We won."

Dave had to laugh at that, the sound coming out choked and desperate. "No. We didn't."

There was a thud, and Dave realized that Aradia was kneeling at Karkat's other side. "I failed Sollux," she whispered.

"We all failed someone," was Rose's soft reply. "I couldn't save Kanaya."

Dirk kicked at the bloodied earth. "I couldn't get to Jake in time, and my anger got Jade killed in turn."

"Terezi," Vriska muttered.

Dave's throat closed up. "John. And Karkat."

They sat in silence, the wind whipping around them. There wasn't anything to say. How could they move on from something like this?

"Did he say anything?" Aradia asked finally, fingers resting on Karkat's shoulder. "Before he went?"

Dave wouldn't have thought it possible, but his heart fell even lower. He couldn't look at anyone right now. "He…said something about _going back?_ He asked me to fix everything."

The troll's eyes widened. Not that Dave saw it, head bowed to his chest. "Going back…he really thought you could do that? In this place, where paradox space is practically destroyed?"

"I don't know!" Dave snapped, anger overtaking him. Karkat was fucking _dead,_ they shouldn't be talking about this! "He just told me to go back. That's all."

Rose frowned thoughtfully. "Go back? As in, back in time?"

It had dawned on him, of course, but still…ever since they'd been removed form paradox space and put in their new universe, Dave hadn't tried to go back in time even once. He'd had no idea how it worked, and he hadn't been eager to fuck things up with the timeline.

Aradia clapped her hands. "Yes, that's exactly what he meant!"

"Is that possible?" Dirk asked, his voice wavering with a mix of hope and hopelessness. "To go back and fix this shitstorm?"

She cocked her head, deep in thought. "I don't know," she admitted. "I haven't messed with the timeline in this world for obvious reasons, so I'm not sure how everything would be affected by jumping back and tampering with events. What I _can_ tell you is that the fabric of this universe is still young, still developing, and too much meddling will do things that not even I can predict."

"How do you know about time?" Dave asked flatly. _"I'm_ the time player here."

"You were the time player of your session," was the cool response. "I was the time player of mine. I'm surprised you've forgotten."

He just shook his head. "What are you suggesting? That we could theoretically jump back and just fix this fucking disaster? Like nothing ever happened?"

Aradia eyed him levelly. "Yes, I think it's possible to go back. But whether or not it's a good idea…"

"We could do terrible things to this world if you go back," Rose agreed. "We have no idea what the effect would be. Doomed timelines no longer exist, so there's no risk of dooming us all that way, but there's still no telling what may happen as a result. What if _all_ of us die next time? What if the time travelers are taken out before they can jump back and try again?"

"We won't be _able_ to try again," Aradia broke in. "Like I said, the fabric of this dimension is still developing. If you try to jump back twice, you could accidentally destroy this entire universe. If we do decide to attempt this, we'll have one chance and one chance only."

"We have to think about this carefully," Rose agreed. "Weighing the risks against the rewards, it's…"

"It's worth it."

All eyes turned to Dave.

"Look…if there's even a chance we can fix this, we should take it."

"Dave, I really think—"

"Rose," Dave whispered, "my matesprit is dead."

She paused, lips still parted. Then, "And so is mine."

"And mine," Dirk muttered. "Though I'm not keen on calling the guy my _matesprit."_

"My moirail, too," Aradia added softly.

"Yeah," Vriska muttered. "Same here."

Dave kept his eyes on Rose, even as the others chimed in. He watched her expression twist more and more with every word, until she was on the verge of tears. They'd all lost so much…

"Rose," Dave said, "do you really think you can live in a world like this one? A world where most of the villagers are dead, and only six of us remain? And that's assuming that Callie didn't die somehow! Does that sound like a place you want to stay?"

She winced.

"I'd do anything to get Jake back," Dirk murmured. "I don't care if it puts this world at stake—it's not like there's much here to care about destroying."

Vriska glared at the ground. "Terezi. If I could get her back, I'd tear this whole gogdamn planet apart. I didn't sit around in the veil for sweeps, pinned between two meteors, just so I could get back here and find out that my moirail is _dead."_

"Sollux," Aradia threw in. "To save him, I…I think I would be willing to put everything at stake."

Dave felt his heart twang with grief. "And if I could get Karkat back, or save John, I'd do anything."

Rose was silent. Then a hand rose to her chest, clenching over her heart, and her features tightened painfully. "Kanaya," she rasped. "I love her more than anything else, but…is it really worth putting everything at risk just to save the one I love?"

"It's not just one person," Dave said. "It's all of us. All of the villagers, all of our dead friends, all of the souls, and everyone that's standing here now. It will save all of us. And besides—I don't think that risking _everything_ is really risking that much when there's nothing left."

Rose stared blankly at the ground. But then she nodded, slowly, and rasped, "You're right. Aradia, Dave…you should do this."

Aradia shook her head. "Not me. If someone's going to do this, it's going to be Dave."

"What?" he asked, stunned. "Why me?"

"Because the fabric of this universe probably won't be able to handle two people going back at the same time, and if it's just going to be one of us then it has to be you, the person who knows exactly how this battle will play out and exactly how to stop it."

"So you just want me to jump back and relive the entire battle, doing whatever I can to save everyone at once?"

"Not quite," Aradia said. "If you jump back in time and just stay there, it's likely that there will be _two_ of you running around at any given time, and I'm not sure this world can handle that."

"So what's the plan, then?"

Aradia hummed. "I think you should do what John did, as advised by Terezi. You should jump back to key moments, whichever ones you deem important, and alter them to turn things in our favor."

"How am I supposed to know which moments to choose?"

Aradia dipped her head to him. "Follow your heart."

"His heart?" Rose echoed. "No, we should make a concise plan!"

"No," Aradia said. "You can't overthink time travel."

"But we should make _some_ kind of plan to—!"

"Yeah, okay," Dave conceded, cutting her off before she could really get going. "My plan can be to do whatever it takes to help us win this battle."

Rose narrowed her eyes. "That doesn't sound very well thought out."

"Nothing in time travel can be well thought out." Dave rolled his shoulders, pushing himself to his feet and forcing himself to look away from the body of his matesprit. He hadn't used his powers in so long…

"Don't leave yet!" Aradia insisted. "There are a few basic things I want to tell you about before you go."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"I may not be able to plan out everything you should change, but there are some things that must be done. I can tell you those things and give you a proper chance."

"Then shoot."

Aradia dipped her head solemnly. "Very well. There are a few things you _must_ do, and one of those things is to rescue Sollux no matter what."

"How will a blind guy without powers help us win?" Dave questioned.

"He'll never lose his powers if you stop Eridan from getting to him while he's still in spirit form," Aradia said. "That should be your first task. After that, most things will be left up to your discretion." Then she paused. "Well…there is one last thing."

He raised a brow. "And what would that be?"

"You'll need to stop time."

"What."

Aradia winced, seeing his trepidation. "If you want to win, then it's crucial that Vriska and I get here as soon as possible. We arrived too late—and if we hadn't, then it's likely you would have won this fight. So Dave…I need you to stop time."

"Hang on, since when can I do that?"

"You can't. That's my specialty, not yours."

"Then how the _fuck—?"_

"Do you want to save your matesprit?"

He blanched.

"Because if you do, then you have to stop time for as long as possible. Don't worry about freezing Vriska and me; your range shouldn't be nearly that far. It will be enough if you can freeze just a few of the aggressive trolls for a few minutes."

"You really think a few minutes will change anything?"

"Maybe not. But at the very least, you won't be the only one trying to change things. When you jump, my abilities should allow me to remember all of this. I will remember exactly where to go to get Vriska and exactly how to get back to the black hole, so that should cut some time out. Hopefully it will be enough to make sure that _no one_ has to die."

"Hold on just a moment," Rose broke in. "You said that you should remember what occurred in this version of reality. What about the rest of us?"

"Well," she said regretfully, "none of you are time players, so you don't have the same timeline manipulation abilities as Dave and me. I'm afraid you won't remember any of this."

"But you two will?" Dirk demanded. "Dave, how will you live with yourself, knowing what happened here? How the _fuck_ are you going to look at Karkat again without seeing him die all over again?"

He swallowed hard. "Let's leave that for when it's actually happening."

"Well it's about to happen now, so get ready." Aradia got to her feet, cringing when drying blood pulled at her skin. "Can you handle the jump, Dave?"

"I have to." Dave steadied himself. He was still shaking, though, no matter what he did—and it took Rose's gentle hand at his shoulder to stop it.

"You can do this," she murmured. "You're intelligent, Dave, and all of us trust you to make the right decisions."

Something brushed against his side, and then Dirk was nudging him with a hip. "Yeah, dude. You got this."

"Try not to get us all killed," Vriska quipped, though most of her fire had been extinguished along with the life of her moirail.

"Don't worry," Dave forced out. "I'll make sure that none of this ever happens, and that none of you die. We'll all be together in the end." If it had been any other time, he would have been embarrassed at how emotional he sounded, how completely unironic he was being. But he'd just seen John's skull bashed in, just seen Karkat's throat torn out by Gamzee's teeth, and he'd lost the ability to stay cool. He was exhausted, beat up, and devastated, and he could act like an emotional wreck if he wanted to.

Dave steeled himself. Let power build beneath his skin. Took one last look at the people around him.

 _This is the last time I'll see these people,_ he realized. And it was true. When he went back in time, no one would remember but him and Aradia. They wouldn't be the same people he'd fought with, wouldn't have the memories he had. But at least they'd be alive—and for that, he thought he didn't mind shouldering such a burden, even if he ended up needing a moirail of his own once this was over.

 _No time for that. I have a job to do._

Dave closed his eyes, and the world was lost to him. Inhaled, and the power churning within his core started to pulse outwards. Exhaled, and he chose the moment he would alter first.

Concentrated, and the world snapped around him.


	25. Dave: Jump

**Dang, this story is almost over! Only three more chapters...it went by so fast! I'm going to miss posting this when it's over.**

 **Chapter 25: Dave: Jump**

* * *

 _ **Pa22word?**_

 _ **Begiinniing**_

* * *

When Dave opened his eyes, he was in an earlier time.

"Good," John said. "Now just what are we supposed to do about this?"

Dave reeled, trying to figure out just which moment he'd jumped to. He'd concentrated on more of a span of time, not a specific minute, so his exact location was a mystery. Looking around he saw that he was in the middle of the lab, John at one side, Sollux at the other. Sollux still had one of his eyes and his teeth, so it looked like it had worked. He was in the past.

His stomach lurched suddenly as the reality of that statement hit him. He was _in the past._ He was here, back before the shit hit the fan, and everyone was okay. Fuck, John was standing _right there._ He was close, behaving normally and watching him with that bright, determined expression, and Dave had to catch himself before he threw himself right into the arms of his best friend just because he was _alive._ He was alive, which meant _everyone_ was alive, which meant that _Karkat_ was alive. It was all he could do not to run off then and there, scrambling to find his matesprit and hold him close and reassure him that he wasn't going to die again. Dave thought he would sooner die himself than watch Karkat be torn apart again.

In the end, though, he knew that there was no way he could do such a thing. Running to Karkat or throwing himself at John would just let everyone know that something was off, something had gone horribly wrong in the future that required him travelling back to the past, and he refused to let them find out just how much pain they'd all been in when he'd been forced to leap back in time. He never wanted to see that devastated expression on Rose's face again, the one that had arisen as she'd realized that Kanaya was gone and they were all going to die. He never wanted to see the way Karkat's features had contorted in agony as he saw that his moirail was dead. He never again wanted to experience the sound of Dirk's anguished cry, torn forth from the core of his very being when he found Jake dead.

Unless he wanted to bring back those horrible emotions, see they way his friends watched him with wide, terrified eyes, he would have to stay silent. He would never allow them to know what had transpired in a future they would never see. Dave would be the only one who knew, aside from Aradia, travelling back to the past in order to prevent anyone from _ever_ knowing. And speaking of time travel shenanigans…

He was the only Dave there. _What the fuck?_

Then someone else spoke, and Dave jolted as he remembered he may have been the only Dave present, but he wasn't the only one in the room.

"Fuck if I know," Sollux grumbled as if nothing had changed, as if he hadn't just been brutally mutilated by Eridan. And in this version of reality, he _hadn't_ been. "We all love thith guy in differnet wayth, tho our coping techniqueth are all going to be different."

Dave blinked, disoriented. Weren't there supposed to be two of him? He'd jumped back in time, and normally that meant creating duplicates of himself. But here he was, standing exactly where he should be, no other version of himself in sight.

And he had _all_ of his memories. Delightful.

John cocked his head to one side, eyes locked onto Sollux. "What are _you_ going to do, then?"

"Eathy. I'm going to go thee if I can hunt down the athhole that did thith to KK."

"Oh, that sounds good!" John exclaimed. "Dave, you can take the western half of the town, and Sollux can take the east. Is that okay?"

And just like that, it all slid into place. Dave remembered when he was.

It was right after Karkat had been put into that horrible coma, and the three of them had stood around trying to decide how to handle the situation. Sollux had headed to the east, Dave had headed to the west, and it had ended with Sollux blind and powerless. This was the first moment he had to change. He had to make sure that Sollux was okay—but he also had to rescue Jake and Dirk, who at this moment were being attacked by Gamzee as a distraction. Gamzee had assumed that Dave would go to help his brother while Eridan took out Sollux.

This time, he was wrong.

"No, I'll take the east," Dave said. "Sollux can handle my asshole of a brother. Head straight to his house, would you?"

Sollux sneered. "Why would I lithten to you, smartath?"

He rolled his eyes. "Just trust me on this, you lispy bastard."

Sollux opened his mouth to snarl something else, but Dave was already flying out of the room towards the eastern half of town. He knew where Eridan, Equius, and Tavros were waiting to ambush him, and he was going to face them before they ever got the chance to take Sollux away.

†††

"It wasn't supposed to be you," Eridan sneered when Dave landed in front of him, sword held aloft. "It was supposed to be Sol. Where the fuck is Sol?"

"Otherwise occupied," Dave said shortly. He pointed his sword at the sea troll's face. "Now, should we get this over with? Why don't you call your little cronies out here so we can _really_ get this thing going?"

Eridan raised a brow. Ahab's Crosshairs was held at his side, and Dave shuddered as he recalled how that weapon had taken _so many_ of his friends out. "Well, if you're insistin'. Tav, Eq, let's show this human what we're made of!"

And _this_ was the point where he was going to lose. Badly. He would be taken down in Sollux's turn—but they couldn't kill him, couldn't do it because they would never be able to force him into a heroic or just death without anyone else around. Dave would live, and soon Sollux would come and find him just as _he_ had gone to find _Sollux_ when this had first happened.

Eridan's gun glowed. Equius raised his fists. Tavros brandished his lance.

 _That's my cue to get out of here._

Dave shifted his consciousness, and the world went dark.

* * *

 _ **Password?**_

 _ **Home**_

* * *

Dave's world spotted back into existence. He hadn't exactly _chosen_ where to go this time; he'd just jumped and trusted his instincts to take him to the right place—and sure enough, this felt _right_. Something had to be changed here.

It seemed that there really _was_ only one of him, even when he jumped in time. This was more akin to the time travel he'd seen in shitty direct to DVD movies, where someone was able to just shift their consciousness from time to time, jumping without ever really moving their physical forms to another plane of existence. Perhaps it had something to do with no longer being in paradox space? Whatever it was, it was throwing his mind for a loop—because he _remembered_ the pain of being torn apart by Eridan, _remembered_ Sollux finding him and rushing him to the infirmary, _remembered_ being pieced back together by Jane, and immediately he was struggling to figure out how time travel worked on this new world. He had the memories of that encounter despite having moved his consciousness to the future, which meant that at some point he _had_ lived through it, but…

He blinked. Shook his head. If there was one thing he'd learned about time travel, it was that there was no use in overthinking it. It was better to just go with the flow.

Rose cleared her throat, and Dave looked up. He was in the main room of the lab, he realized, everyone gathered around him. When was this?

"So," Rose said brusquely. "We're all here. Shall we have that meeting we've been needing to have?"

There was a whiteboard behind her, the names of the souls written in neat, blocky letters, and something in Dave's mind clicked. He knew what was happening—Rose was making the plan that would decide who fought who and where.

 _What has to be changed?_ Dave watched through narrowed eyes as Rose started assigning teams to the various targets. There wasn't much different here from the first time, he noticed. Tavros and Karkat were with Tavros, Dirk with Nepeta, Roxy and Terezi with Equius, John and Dave with Gamzee, Rose and Kanaya with Feferi, and Eridan with Sollux and Jade. Sollux was the only change. Would that really be enough to make sure things didn't fall apart before Aradia and Vriska arrived? Would _any_ of this be enough?

 _The original matchups worked well enough,_ he recalled. _Our real problems began when we deviated from our original plan. So what is it that has to be altered here to prevent that?_

"I can set up some of my transporters all over the village," Jane offered, a shy smile on her face. "That will help us travel much more swiftly between areas, and it will help me get to the injured fast enough to heal them."

Then it clicked, and Dave realized what he was supposed to be changing.

 _The locations of the teleporters._

"Actually," Dave said, "would you mind if I helped you out with that?"

Jane cocked her head. "Don't you want to stay here with Karkat?"

"Yeah," John threw in nervously, "what if he wakes up and you're not here? Dave, I really think you should—"

"Trust me on this," Dave interrupted. "I know where we need to put the transporters."

Rose shot him an odd, suspicious look, but said nothing.

"Well…" Jane glanced to Roxy. "Roxy, as long as you don't have a problem with it…"

"Oh no," she shrugged, "I'm fine. I'll just hang with Callie for a while. You two knock yourselves out."

"Um, right." Jane's eyes swung back to Dave. "Well then, I guess we should be off? Assuming that there's nothing else we need to discuss, of course!"

Dave shifted. Rose was still watching him, and it was making him uncomfortable.

"No," she said finally, softly. "Feel free to get on with your tasks, all of you."

The meeting began to break up. He remembered this part—Dirk would go and begin to hook up his thermal scanners, Rose and Kanaya would meet to work out battle strategies, and John would return to Karkat's side to keep watch.

This time would be a little different, though.

When Dave left with Jane to set up the teleporters, he knew exactly where to put them. He remembered the site of every battle, remembered where best to put them for easy travel. Six teleporters went up around the lab, each leading to a different part of the map. One rested to the north, above the home he'd built beside John's, where he knew Tavros would appear. Another went to the west, where Dirk would find Nepeta ready and waiting. Two lead to the south, one behind Karkat's house for Gamzee and one a few miles to the east for Feferi. And finally, two more angled to the east, one slightly southward to intercept Eridan, and one slightly northward to catch Equius.

When they were done there existed a perfect web of teleporters, each ready and waiting to bear one of their team to their target. There would be no excessive travel this way, no waiting for Jane to arrive and fly to their location. She could step through a teleporter and be entered immediately into the fray.

 _This will save us at least a little time,_ Dave thought once they returned to the lab and flew up to admire their handiwork. _Not much, but…this along with Aradia's knowledge of the future and my attempts to freeze time will have to be enough._

And he hoped to god that it really _was_ going to be enough.

* * *

 _ **password?**_

 _ **freeze**_

* * *

"You guys!" Dirk yelled, barging into the hallway and making sure that everyone within a five mile radius could hear him. "Guys, it's happening!"

Dave blinked, snapped suddenly into yet another moment in time. He shook his head repeatedly, struggling to orient himself in the current time. When was he _this_ time?

"The souls aren't souls anymore!" Dirk called again. "They're solid, you guys, so get the fuck in here!"

And just like that, Dave's memories caught up with him. _I remember…this is right when the battle is about to start! In a few minutes, everyone will leave and then I'll be left to say goodbye to John and Karkat. And after that…_

He felt someone grab onto his arm. "Dave, why are you just standing there? Come on!"

Dave jumped, then cursed himself for being startled. He _knew_ what was happening. He'd lived this before; he shouldn't be afraid.

"Come on!" John insisted again, and then he was pulling Dave along into the main room, where Rose was waiting to deliver her final speech.

 _We're about to fight,_ Dave thought as Rose went through her inspirational spiel. _Which means that if anything has to be changed here, it's…_

"Good luck to all of you," Rose said, dipping her head. "We'll see each other on the other side."

 _This is where I have to freeze time._

It all happened in slow motion. Everyone began to file out, one by one. Sollux said his goodbyes and vanished deep into the lab. John hugged Karkat, nearly in tears, and went to wait outside.

Then Dave and Karkat were alone again, and Dave felt his heart constricting in his chest. _I'm not going to let you die this time, Karkat. I won't._

"Dave?" Karkat asked gruffly, looking concerned. "Are you okay? You seem a bit…pale."

He glanced to Karkat, then turned his head away. He couldn't look at him without seeing Gamzee's teeth in his throat, without seeing bight red blood pumping from deadly gouges in his flesh. _Maybe Dirk was right._

"Dave?"

"I'm fine," he forced out. "Just look out for yourself, okay? Don't do anything stupid." _Don't go near Gamzee._

He wanted to tell him everything. Wanted to let him know what was coming, what was possible, how everyone may die despite his best efforts. But he said nothing, knowing that to tell someone of the inevitable would do nothing but harm, and instead chose to suffer silently.

"Yeah…" Karkat said, looking entirely unconvinced. "Right. But only if you promise me _you'll_ stay alive too, grubfucker."

He snorted at the insult. "Are you kidding me? This is going to be a piece of cake."

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Of course it is." Then he was moving forward, pulling Dave down by the collar and mashing their lips together for an all too brief moment. "Don't die," he reiterated. "Seriously. You've said some really fucking strange things the past few times we've spoken, and you're worrying the shit out of me."

He waved him off. "I'll be fine, dude. Now get out of here."

Karkat just stared for a moment, uncertain. But then he shrugged, turned, and vanished through the doorway.

 _I_ promise _, Karkat, that things will end differently this time. Even if I have to jump in front of Gamzee myself._

But before any of that could happen, before he could save his matesprit, he had to stop time.

 _Okay, calm down…how am I supposed to do this, again? Aradia didn't exactly leave any instructions for me. Do I just…?_

He straightened and squared his shoulders, arms hanging limp at his sides, his chin dipping to his chest. His eyes slid closed. What did he normally do when he used his powers? Let it build, slowly, churning in his chest and thrumming just beneath the skin. Let it swirl in the pit of his stomach and pulse beneath the pads of his fingertips. Let it coil like a snake ready to strike. Then let it _snap_ outward, shove it through his skin and out into the world around him with all his strength, and just like that he would be in a different time.

This had to be the same thing, right?

He could already feel the familiar buildup of power in his stomach, twining out to wrap around his arms and lace down his spine. Yes, this was right, this was normal…so what did he change to _freeze_ time rather than jump through it?

He recalled again how he would normally do things, letting the power snap within him. Such a huge surge of power released all at once was necessary in order to travel through time, but maybe freezingit called for a bit more… _finesse_.

Yeah…that was probably it.

He inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled again. Forced his shoulders to relax. Forced the tension to drain out of him. Then he turned his eyes inwards, looked to his own power, and just sort of… _let go._

He felt the power ooze from him slowly, leaking from his skin and exuding itself at a steady, leisurely pace, rippling in the air around him and crawling outward as if it didn't have a care in the world. It wasn't his usual _snap_ of power, it was more of a hum—and it was _working._

He could feel it. He felt the instant everything began to slow around him, and then he felt the instant everything just _stopped._

 _Holy fuck, I'm doing it._

He was holding time still—but not without a great personal cost.

He wasn't used to this. He was used to expelling all his power at once, not tamping it down and letting it drain bit by bit. He didn't have the same self-control Aradia had, unable to freeze time at single moment for long, and he _knew_ that he wouldn't last long. A few minutes, maybe. _Maybe._ And he had to take into consideration that he _had_ to keep enough power to make several more jumps _and_ fight Gamzee. He had to remember that even though he wasn't consciously living out the battle right after this moment due to his jumping around in time, he _would_ still have to fight. He would still have to keep John alive, keep _Karkat_ alive, and he _had_ to have enough power left for that. He would have to be a very good judge of his own abilities.

He winced as the power tugged uncomfortably at his gut. It wasn't happy with him, controlling it so forcefully. _Fuck, I can't…_

His head was beginning to spin. _I have to stop…fuck, I have to stop…but if I can get just a moment more…_

Something was coiling in his chest, tightening around his heart and ready to crack. He had to hold it for just a moment more, _for as long as he could._

And then, just like that, it was too much.

Dave gasped as his remaining power snapped, just as he'd known it would, and hurled him into the future.

* * *

 _ **passw0rd?**_

 _ **f0und**_

* * *

Aradia tore through the outer reaches of what remained of paradox space, wings fluttering as quickly as physically possible as she headed for where she knew Vriska was trapped. She remembered everything, remembered _all_ of what had happened before she'd been cast back in time, and she knew that she had to get to Vriska _now._ Her friends' lives depended on it.

"Vriska!" she called. She was close. "Vriska, where are you? Come on, I know you're out here!" She darted around one meteor, then another. She was here. She was here _somewhere._

Then she heard it.

"Hey! Hey, over here! Get me the hell off this thing!"

Just like the first time, Aradia's heart lurched, and she took off in the direction of the voice. "Vriska, keep talking!" she called. "Lead me to you!"

"Keep talking? Oh, that's just perfect! Do you have any idea how long I've been yelling for someone, _anyone_ to figure out I was trapped here? I've been screaming my lungs out for _sweeps,_ and now here you are and you want me to keep yelling?"

She tracked the voice further into the field, darting around asteroids whenever she remembered that one was about to come out of nowhere and clobber her. She'd heard it all, _seen_ it all before.

"I mean, it's not like I totally saved the universe or anything; _that's_ certainly not something that good ol' Vriska did for you saps! Not like I dropped everything and flew right the hell off to deal with some crazed _maniac_ of a green douchebag and smacked him right upside the head with some of that poetic justice that Terezi just _loves!_ Not like I—"

"Vriska!"

And there she was, just like last time, ankle lodged into a crack in the meteor. Aradia rounded the final corner and landed on the hunk of rock, already reaching for her trapped appendage. _No time._

"Aradia!" Vriska exclaimed, eyes widening as she finally came into sight. "Fucking _finally!_ I've been trapped on this chunk of garbage for so gogdamn long, I can't believe someone actually _found_ me!"

Aradia scrabbled at the rock trapping Vriska in place, tearing away at it until it finally gave with a crackling crunch. Then the troll was free, fluttering upward and rubbing at her ankle with a distasteful snarl.

"I swear, it's been—"

"Come with me," Aradia demanded, taking Vriska's hand. "There's not much time."

Vriska yanked her hand away with a snarl. "Hold on just a minute! I just got out of that disaster of a situation, don't you want to _explain_ a few things before you just go dragging me all around this gogforsaken place?"

Aradia's blood pusher fluttered with anger. They didn't have _time_ for this. Dave had promised to do what he could, but he could only hold time in a single moment for so long. Every second was precious. Every moment could mean the life or death of one of her friends.

"Aradia, what's wrong with you?"

She jolted. Reached out and took the other troll's arm. "Do you want everyone to die?"

Vriska blinked. "What?"

"Do you want everyone to die?" she repeated. "Because if you do, then you're more than welcome to sit here and ask pointless questions. But if you want to save the lives of everyone you've ever known, then you'll come with me _now_."

"Aradia, what…?"

She tugged at her arm insistently. "Come with me. I'll explain along the way."

* * *

 _ **pASSWORD?**_

 _ **sWITCH**_

* * *

Dave regained awareness in mid-swing, sword deflecting off of one of Gamzee's clubs and angling into the ground. Glancing behind him, he saw John darting this way and that in his usual flighty manner, but no one else was with him. It was just the two of them against Gamzee, which meant that Karkat's arrival was still a ways off, if it was going to happen at all.

 _Okay, so what needs to be changed here? When am I, exactly?_

He winced as his earpiece buzzed to life.

 _"Rothe is rethurrecting, tho I'm in charge of athignmentth while she's buthy being dead, got it?"_

Dave blinked. _Sollux? Wait…wasn't this around the beginning of the battle?_

 _"Don't get thnippy with me!"_ Sollux snapped as someone (Dirk, most likely) made a sarcastic comment. _"I'm more than capable of making thtrategic dethicionth, even if Eridan'th trying to blatht my head off!"_ There was the sound of a muffled yelp as if in confirmation. Then, _"Lithten up, you mitherable lot! I'm making thome changeth to the rothter. Dirk, NP, you two are going for EQ. Dirk, you can figure out where he ith for yourthelf and get there without me holding your hand. Jake, you're on ED."_

Dave's stomach flipped.

 _"What?"_ Jade and Jake gasped in unison.

 _"Look,"_ Jade insisted, _"I really don't think that's a good—!"_

 _"Oh can it, it'll be fine!"_ Sollux snapped. _"He won't be alone. TZ, I want you to thwitch targetth to ED as well. Cover Jake'th ath and make sure no one gets killed. Once Dirk and NP have reached your location, you can head over there. Understood?"_

 _"Got it, boss,"_ Terezi snickered, and everyone could _feel_ her snarky grin.

Sollux continued. _"TV, are you ready to take on an opponent?"_

 _"Oh, um, I think that maybe I can, do that. If I, um, can be useful."_

 _"Then KK, I want you to show him how the teleporterth work and get him to GZ."_

His stomach flipped again, and he knew what he was supposed to be altering. "No."

A pause. Then, _"What?"_

"No," he repeated, and Sollux hissed angrily in response. "That isn't going to work. Send Tavros to Equius and Nepeta to Gamzee."

 _"Why the fuck would I do that?"_

 _"Yeah,"_ Dirk put in, _"why? It seems that if we send the trolls to the people they had emotional connections with, they'll have a chance of swaying them back to our side before we have to kill them."_

"Seems like it, doesn't it?" he muttered. "But that's not what's going to happen. It's just going to make them angrier, so send them to different targets! Nepeta _has_ to go to Gamzee, and Tavros _has_ to go to Equius!"

Silence. Deep, stunned silence. Then, _"Is this one of your_ feelingth _again, Dave?"_

He snarled. Sollux was always needling at him, the bastard—why couldn't he listen to him just _once?_

" _You_ have _been spouting a lot of those weird premonition-esque statements lately,"_ Jane agreed nervously. _"Is there something you're not telling us?"_

He couldn't deal with this right now. "No. Now get Nepeta and Tavros out there, and let's win this!"

No one responded. But a few minutes later, when the inevitable shift in the tide of battle didn't happen, he knew that they had listened.

 _So far so good. Maybe we can actually win this._

A smile on his face, insides twisting from the amount of power he was expelling, he shifted.

* * *

 _ **Passw8rd?**_

 _ **Arrival**_

* * *

Aradia burst from the gateway, Vriska in tow, and flew out into the middle of a battle in motion. Her blood pusher lurched with relief when she saw that the village was still intact, and there wasn't a spot of blood anywhere within her sights.

 _You've done it, Dave. I knew you could._

She decaptchalogued the earpiece she'd snagged from Dave before time had reset, clipping it on and sending out a broadcast.

"We're here," she announced. "Well done, Dave."

 _"Yeah,"_ was the breathless response, _"I'm pretty fucking amazing."_

She smiled. "Yes, you are."

A pause. Then an explosion of noise as every single human and troll tried to ask the same questions at the same time.

 _"What the—?"_

 _"Aradia, are you—?"_

 _"Dave, what is…?"_

Dave growled. _"No time for confusion now. Aradia and Vriska are here to help us, so we're working them into our strategy_ now!"

"Yes," Aradia agreed. "Sollux, if you would be so kind as to direct Vriska to Eridan, I'm sure she can handle him alone while the current team assigned to him goes to fight someone else."

 _"Um, what the fuck? AA, you're…?"_

"Here," she confirmed with a dip of the head. "But there's no time for talking! Sollux, Rose, you two should decide where the current team with Eridan would be best used. Vriska will handle Eridan solo, and I will go wherever you think I'll be the most useful."

 _"VK…you really think you can handle ED on your own?"_

Vriska bared her fangs, biting out, "Fishface is as good as dead once I sink my claws into him."

 _"Fuck, VK, that'th…"_

"Thank me later," she said. "Tell me how to get there _now."_

There was a brief moment of stunned silence. Then Sollux said, _"I'm getting you into a theparate call with me. I'll direct you here."_

Vriska nodded. A moment later she was taking off, Sollux's voice no doubt humming in her ear. When Sollux came back online a few minutes later, Aradia knew that Vriska had reached her location.

 _"Rothe?"_ Sollux asked. _"Where do you think the retht of uth here should go?"_

A pause. Then, " _Jade, Sollux, Terezi, Jake—all of you are on Eridan right now, correct?"_

The four murmured in confirmation.

 _"I see…then Jade, Sollux, I think you would be best suited to joining Kanaya and me with Feferi. Jake, Aradia, go to Equius. Terezi, to Gamzee."_

A wise choice. As far as Aradia knew, that would leave Gamzee battling John, Dave, Nepeta, and Terezi. Feferi would be dealing with Rose, Kanaya, Sollux, and Jade. Eridan was with Vriska, obviously, which meant that Equius would be left with Dirk, Jake, Roxy, Tavros, and Aradia herself. Karkat would be somewhere near the lab, if she wasn't mistaken. The group had never begun to lose, so it hadn't been necessary to throw the weakened troll into battle.

 _"I expect an explanation for this later,"_ Rose said. _"But for now, let's do our best to win this battle."_

Aradia nodded. "Understood. And Dave?"

 _"Yeah?"_

"No more jumping around in time. The fabric of this universe is already strained to its breaking point. This will have to be enough."

He chuckled. _"Don't think I could jump again if I tried."_

Aradia smiled. She knew the feeling. "Good luck to you all."

 _"Good luck, Aradia."_

†††

After that, things just…fell into place.

Equius went down easy. Aradia arrived and froze him mid moment, and while such a spell would normally have been easy for such a powerful troll to break out of, he was so stunned that he paused just long enough for Jake to get a few bullets into his brain, and for Roxy to clamp down on him with one of her constructs, and for Tavros to run him straight through the chest with his lance.

Equius just stared for a moment, eyes wide, blue blood drooling out around Tavros's lance. Then he staggered back, and Tavros yanked the weapon out of him with the sickening sound of metal sliding on torn flesh. The highblood was on the ground a moment later, and only a moment after that he was still.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Vriska had Eridan on his knees.

The sea troll glared up at Vriska, a mixture of blood and saliva dripping down his chin, one eye taken out by a quick slash of the blue blood's cutlass.

"This is it, huh?" Vriska cackled. "This is the best that the great Eridan Ampora has to offer?"

Eridan sneered. Lunged forward. But he was weak from blood loss, beaten and battered by a furious Vriska Serket and already on the edge of death. Fighting was useless.

"Stay down, seadweller scum!" she snarled. She was still holding that cutlass she loved so much, a set of dice clenched in the fingers of her other hand as she dodged cleanly to one side and stomped down on Eridan's back. "You should have died a long time ago; I'm just delivering you to your _destiny."_

Eridan tried to say something, but blood gurgled in his throat and made his words indistinguishable.

"What, nothing to say?"

He snarled furiously. Choked on his own blood.

Vriska shrugged, twirling her sword theatrically. "Oh well. I tried."

She rolled a perfect ten.

And meanwhile, not too far away, Feferi was taken down in tandem.

This, too, was fast.

Sollux lashed out with his powers, grabbed onto every part of Feferi he could reach, and _squeezed._ It hadn't been enough to trap Eridan, and it wasn't enough to trap Feferi—but what it _was_ enough to do was surprise her, jolt her with shock just as Aradia had managed to shock Equius—and that shock was just enough to turn the tides.

Jade got her pinned by turning a pebble into a boulder and smashing it down on her leg. A blast of white magic from Rose sent her trident flying. Kanaya lunged forward and slashed with all her strength across her chest, dealing her a grievous wound that left her blood pusher torn in two.

And just like that, Feferi was gone as well.

At the same time, Jane made her rounds. She went to Eridan first, as per Vriska's request, and got the seadweller back on his feet. He'd been violent for all of two seconds before Vriska had smacked him over the head and snarled at him, and then he seemed content to head for Feferi and watch as Jane revived her. Feferi had understood the situation in a heartbeat, and one word from her was all it took to make sure Eridan never turned on them again. Jane jumped to Equius next, revived him in a flash, and then there was only one left.

Gamzee Makara.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, that fight wasn't going as well as it should have been.

And even more unfortunately, no one was going to make it in time.

†††

Karkat paced back and forth in the lab, fingers itching to grasp onto his sickles and swing at _something._ He'd been locked up ever since defeating Tavros, stomping around as Callie sat at the monitor, eyes locked onto the glowing dots. They didn't _need_ him, Sollux had said. They didn't need his help; there were plenty of them out there to handle things. Plenty of people that could fight far better than he could.

Well, at least things were going well. Judging from the dots on the screen and the way his friends were chattering, it sounded like they were winning. Equius, Eridan, and Feferi were all on the ropes, either dying or on their way there, outnumbered severely. Gamzee, though…

Karkat eyed the dots around Gamzee's location. They'd been flickering in and out frequently, signifying the repeated deaths of his friends, then their resurrections. It wasn't going well. Even with four people on him, it wasn't going well. It was a miracle that Nepeta, someone who couldn't afford to die, and Terezi, who could only die once, were still on their feet.

Karkat flicked his eyes over to the other sites of battle. Equius's dot was starting to waver as his body temperature dropped. He must have been dead, or nearly there, for his already cool temperature to drop far enough to register on the scanners. Feferi still looked to be going strong. Eridan was wavering.

 _Are they going to be okay?_ Karkat thought nervously, looking back to Gamzee. The highblood showed no signs of weakening from what he could see, and he didn't dare to contact John and Dave for risk of distracting them. He was worried, though. Desperately worried. His moirail and his matesprit were fighting for their lives out there, and he was doing _nothing._

 _Surely I can help. Surely there's something I can do._

Karkat shifted from side to side.

 _One jump. There's a portal that leads right to the site of battle. If I go there, I can help. I can help, or…_

Or Gamzee would just kill him. Growl at him and put him on the ground. Yeah…going was a bad idea.

Fuck, he _really_ wanted to go.

Terezi's dot flickered. Nepeta's stuttered.

 _Are they in trouble?_

If they were in trouble, then…

 _Then I'll go._

†††

 _I've done well,_ Dave thought, listening to Roxy's cry of triumph as she reported that Equius was down. _We're winning._

This battle was a far cry from the nightmare he'd lived out the first time. Something was _different;_ he could feel it in the air. Unlike the haze of hopelessness that had surrounded him the first time, this time he felt _hopeful._

Though, he'd feel more hopeful if Gamzee would just _fucking die already._

Gamzee roared as if he'd heard Dave's thoughts, and he found himself staring at Terezi's back as she stepped in to catch the incoming club with her blades. Nepeta was there a heartbeat later, claws sinking into the clown troll's back and ripping down at full strength, and John appeared only a moment after that to slam his hammer into the side of his skull.

Gamzee roared again, staggered. How was he even still on his feet? He'd lost so much blood, it should have been impossible.

"We have to be close to getting him down," John panted.

"Think again, motherfuckers!" Gamzee lashed out, caught John with a club, and sent him sprawling to one side.

"John!" Terezi was there in an instant, slashing at Gamzee's flesh before he could go running after the boy he'd just knocked into the ground. Nepeta's claws locked into his ankles to keep him still.

"We have to be close," John repeated in a low, choking moan. "Come on, let's just…"

"Finish this," Terezi repeated in a snarl. "Dave, get in here!"

He did. He was too weak to jump through time, too weak to freeze Gamzee in place long enough to do anything to him—but he still had his sword, and that was what he used to lash out at Gamzee with all his strength.

 _You killed John._

He stabbed his sword into the tough skin at Gamzee's shoulder and bore down with all his strength.

 _You killed Karkat._

He kicked at Gamzee as he struggled, indigo blood gushing out from around the point of his blade.

 _You killed my_ matesprit.

He tore his blade to the side as hard as he could, relishing the pained cry that arose from his victim.

 _You're going to pay._

Nepeta was back. Her claws stabbed into Gamzee's back, her weight tugging him towards the ground. He staggered.

 _I'm going to_ make _you pay._

Terezi flickered back into sight. Her blades pierced Gamzee's ankles, one to each, and pinned him down even as he swayed as if he were about to fall.

 _You'll die like this. I'll kill you._

John darted forward in a whirlwind of breeze, planted a foot to Gamzee's unoccupied shoulder, and _pushed._

 _Make him pay make him pay make him pay_

Gamzee shrieked, flailing desperately as blood fountained from the multiple wounds on his body. Fell, nearly crushing Nepeta in the process, taking Dave with him as the blade drove in further, deeper, harder. Hissed as he landed on his back, wounds ripping open further.

 _MAKE HIM PAY!_

Gamzee twitched. Spluttered, spurting blood. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he was still.

 _Is it over?_

Dave stared down in shock at those glassy orbs, hands still fixed to the sword sticking out of Gamzee's shoulder. Someone shifted behind him, and he realized Terezi was pulling her blades out of Gamzee's flesh and stepping back to admire what they'd done together. John flew back, eyes wide, weapon dangling at his fingertips. Nepeta crouched, claws caked thick with gore.

 _Is this it?_

"Is it over?" John whispered. "Is he dead?"

Dave stepped back as if in a dream. His fingers slid from the hilt of his blade, letting it stick there without support. Gamzee was still, pale. Was he really dead? Was it possible?"

It had to be over. He was so _still_.

"It is," Terezi murmured, staring down at Gamzee, eyes wide. "John, we—"

Then Gamzee growled, and Dave's stomach lurched straight through the ground as he realized how wrong they all were.

" _Nice try_ , motherfuckers _,_ but I'm not gonna die just yet!"

Gamzee whipped up, sword still jutting from his shoulder, a vicious look on his face. He was dripping blood and gore, visibly weak to the knees, but he was _alive._ And as Dave watched, he wrenched the blade out of his shoulder and wielded it as his own.

 _Oh, fuck._

Gamzee moved with a speed impossible for one that was half dead. He turned on heel, club already whirling in Nepeta's direction, sword already flashing towards Terezi.

"Terezi—!"

Terezi shrieked as the sword slashed across her chest, dark blood welling up in a gash far too deep for any hope of survival. She staggered back, a shocked look on her face, then collapsed to the ground in a puddle of teal. Dead until Jane could get to them. Not two feet away there was an answering screech, then choking silence as the club Gamzee had thrown smashed into Nepeta's forehead and put her on the ground. Not dead, but unconscious.

Dave jolted in shock. _Jane. I have to call Jane._

He reached for his earpiece, but was cut off by Gamzee lunging at him with a snarl. He took Dave to the ground with little effort using his weight alone, and the next moment the human was grapping with someone far stronger than himself as fingers pulled at his shirt, his hair, his fingers. He tried to fight, tried to struggle, but Gamzee was so strong, and _where the fuck was John?_

"I've got you!" John called, but Gamzee had already wrenched off his earpiece and crushed it into dust. And when John swooped in, weapon in hand, Gamzee simply knocked him to one side and grabbed the earpiece from him as well, snapping it in two.

 _Communications have been cut off._

And that meant that unless Jane looked down and noticed that Terezi had gone offline (unlikely in all the chaos), they were on their own.

 _Fuck…this is just like last time. John and me against Gamzee…_

Gamzee snarled, and one hand lashed out to catch John as he tried to right himself and dash away. The troll's claws caught in his shirt, dragged him close, and a single jerk of Gamzee's arms snapped John's neck.

"John!"

He fell to the ground, limp and lifeless. It would take a few minutes for him to resurrect.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck! How did this fall apart so quickly? John, wake up…and Jane, get over here!_

"Looks like it's just the two of us, motherfucker," Gamzee sneered. He was spattered horrifyingly with blood, shaking and weak, but he was still plenty strong enough to take him down if he wasn't careful.

 _At least it's not as bad as last time,_ Dave thought. _If he kills me and gets away, someone else will be there to catch him. But still, I'll do everything I can to stop him here and now. I don't want him to hurt anyone else!_

Gamzee twirled his clubs. "Let's _dance_ , motherfucker!"

He swung, Dave dove out of the way, and their dance begun.

†††

Karkat sucked in a horrified gasp when he saw Terezi's dot go flat, then Nepeta's flicker until it was barely lit. And then—and _then—_

Karkat had to hold back a cry as John's stuttered, then went out. His moirail had been killed, and he had _no idea_ if it was permanent or temporary.

"Dave!" he called, putting out a signal in an attempt to contact his matesprit.

Nothing.

"Dave," he tried again, "Come the fuck on, can you hear me? Come in!"

Nothing.

Karkat hissed through his teeth, Callie shooting him a nervous look at his obvious anger. "Fuck! Either he's ignoring me, or his fucking earpiece is _gone!"_

 _This is the time to decide, Vantas. Your matesprit is out there, facing Gamzee alone—and while he may not be able to die permanently unless it's heroic or just, he can certainly be mutilated horribly and brought to the brink of insanity through pain alone. So, what do you do? Do you stay here and cower, or do you go and help him?_

"I'm sure he's fine," Callie attempted. "John should be back up in a moment, and then Jane will—"

 _Make a choice. Help your matesprit, or cower while he's torn apart._

And when it was put like that, he knew exactly what his choice would be.

"Karkat!" Callie called out in alarm as he went tearing for the lab entrance. "Karkat, what are you doing?"

He didn't respond. He just ran, movements only slightly shaky from the fact that he still wasn't up to full strength after being put in a coma for a week, and darted towards the teleporter that would take him right to his matesprit.

He should have done anything else. He should have remembered how resilient Dave was, remembered that even if Gamzee tortured him for hours, he would be able to pull himself back. He should have called Rose, called Sollux, called Jane, called _anyone_ about what was happening. He should have remembered that there were others among them that could risk their lives without fear of really dying, and that _they_ were the ones that should be going to intercept Gamzee. All of this, he should have remembered.

But he _didn't_ remember. All he knew was that Dave was out there, Dave was in pain and bleeding, and if he could do _anything_ to help him then he was going to _do_ it, no matter what. There was much he overlooked in that frantic dash for the teleporters—but one thing he _didn't_ overlook was the memory of how terrified he'd been when Gamzee had pinned him down and snapped his fingers, raked his claws across his flesh, and how that experience had haunted him ever since its occurrence. He would never forget it.

And now, the same thing could be happening to Dave. It could be happening to his matesprit, scarring him forever, and he had the chance to stop it.

 _Hang on, Dave. I'm coming for you._

He leapt into the thing, and the world blurred around him.

†††

When things settled back down and Karkat's vision sharpened again, he found himself facing his worst nightmare.

"D-Dave…?"

Gamzee whirled around, blood dripping from his jaws as he bent low over Dave's prone form. From the way Gamzee was crouched over him, he couldn't see much—but he could _hear_ everything, and the way Dave was groaning told him that he was _not_ okay.

It felt so _familiar._ Why did it feel familiar?

"Karbro," Gamzee chuckled, sitting back on Dave's hips and looking back to offer his former moirail a bloody grin. "So glad you could all up and motherfucking join us!" He jostled, and Dave whimpered.

 _Like…a reversal of something that's happened before._

"Get off of him," Karkat snarled, prowling just slightly closer. He didn't want to cause Gamzee to do anything foolish. But the closer he got the more he could see of what had been done to Dave, the more he could see a flicker of blue in the background where John was collapsed in a pool of his own blood, and the more furious he became.

"Like it?" Gamzee asked, wiping gore from his lips. "I thought of you while I did it, best friend."

Karkat shook with anger as he looked down at the bloody mess before him. Gamzee had fucking _mutilated_ his matesprit, teeth and claws pulling and tearing and slashing at his throat, his face, his stomach, his chest, his arms, until he was limp and motionless beneath him. The evidence of what Gamzee had done was written all over his face, painted there in scarlet.

"Dave," Karkat whispered, taking a step closer. "Dave, can you hear me?"

The human groaned, fingers curling in on nothing.

It had only been a moment. He'd only left Dave and Gamzee alone for a moment while he raced for the teleporter. _How had this happened so quickly?_

Gamzee flicked his fingers, and a mixture of indigo and scarlet blood sprayed out across the earth. "Well, I think it's safe to say that he's not gonna be all up and goin' anywhere." He stood. "What do you say, motherfucking best friend? Is it your turn?"

Gamzee took a step towards him, and Dave snarled weakly in protest. He opened his mouth to talk, but just ended up choking on a mouthful of blood.

Karkat paused. His stomach was twisting with fear, blood pusher lurching with uncertainty, but he knew that this was his responsibility. He was supposed to keep Gamzee away from Dave until Jane could get there and heal him, and until John woke up to help. _I have to hold my ground._

"I'll take that as a yes," Gamzee chuckled, and both clubs were back in his hands, twirling with deadly precision. Then he was lashing out with a roar, and Karkat found himself reliving every moment of what had happened in the relaxation block, back when Gamzee was still intangible as a spirit.

"K-Kar…!" Dave rasped. "Karkat, f-fight!"

His sickles were in his hands, then, and his body followed Dave's command before he even knew he was doing it. He dove to one side as Gamzee's club bashed into the ground at his side, scrabbling to his feet and hooking one of Gamzee's legs with his sickle as he overextended himself in his attempt to smash his head in.

 _He's weak,_ Karkat realized with a jolt. _He's lost a lot of blood already. If I can just get him with a few well-placed blows, then maybe I won't have to wait for Jane. Maybe I can end this myself._

Gamzee staggered as a sickle tore through his flesh, sending him recoiling with a deep snarl.

 _Damn, he's even weaker than I thought. I bet even a growl couldn't affect me right now._

"Motherfucker!" Gamzee shrieked. "I'll motherfucking _end_ you!"

Then he _did_ growl, and Karkat's entire being jolted as the sound thrummed through him. He waited, then, for his entire body to go weak and jelly-like, but… _nothing happened_.

He'd been right. Gamzee was so weak, had lost so much blood, that he wasn't able to growl properly.

 _Fuck…maybe I really_ can _end this._

Filled with new determination, Karkat squared his shoulders to his opponent. His sickles gleamed wickedly at his sides, muscles tense and ready to snap outwards at the first sign of real combat. He wasn't a fighter. Never had been. But if he was protecting his matesprit, then he would do whatever it took. He would make sure he never felt pain again.

"Is that all you've got?" Karkat taunted, stepping cleanly out of the way as Gamzee barreled past him. "I expected more, Makara, after all that talk!"

Gamzee snarled furiously, whirling around and chucking one of his juggling clubs at Karkat with all his strength. Luckily the smaller troll was ready for it, and a single roll took him well out of range.

"Weak," Karkat sneered. Gamzee threw his other club, and he leapt over it with only a twinge of discomfort. _"Pathetic."_

Gamzee's eyes flashed, smoke practically curling up from his nostrils in his fury. He said nothing, though, just snatched two more clubs from his sylladex and lunged for Karkat in a flicker of green, white, and red.

 _Oh, fuck._ Karkat yelped as he suddenly found himself facing down a brick wall. And okay, maybe Gamzee wasn't _quite_ as weak as he'd hoped, because it was taking every scrap of his energy to keep the killer clown from bashing his pan in. Deflecting the strikes with his sickles was impossible, he soon found. The one time he tried he nearly ended up shattering all the bones in his wrist from the shock of the blow. After that he decided to stick to dodging and lashing out whenever he saw an opening.

Unfortunately, that wasn't very often.

Gamzee was weaker than usual, there was no doubt of that. But Karkat was _also_ weaker than usual, putting him far below Gamzee's level, and Gamzee was still so _fast._ It was all Karkat could do to distract him from Dave without being killed himself.

It couldn't last forever, though. Soon enough, he messed up.

He didn't see it coming. He just felt the lash of a club across the back of his shoulder blade, audibly cracking the bone but not quite breaking it. He tried to scream, but Gamzee took the opportunity to jab the but of his club into his chest and steal his breath away. He thought he heard Dave rasping out a cry of alarm. His ears seemed to have shut off, though, shut of as Gamzee sneered triumphantly and swept his feet out from under him with a single, clean swipe of a red-striped club. He rolled to one side just in time to avoid having his pan crushed, rolled as the other club tried to snap him into unconsciousness, but couldn't move fast enough to dodge the set of claws that raked suddenly across his shoulder, then his chest, then his cheek. Gamzee had dropped one of his clubs, then the other, just to dive atop him and try to carve into him like a roasted featherbeast. Again, he thought Dave was calling out.

"Still think you can take me, motherfucker?" Gamzee growled. "Or are you ready to just lie down and die?"

Karkat thrashed furiously. His sickles were still in his hands, and he used them to slash deep furrows into the backs of Gamzee's shoulders. The highblood roared, swiping down with his claws, but the pain was just blinding enough for the smaller troll to throw him off and scramble to his feet. He wanted to take advantage of Gamzee's pained state, to leap forward and drive his sickles into his throat, but he was forced to use the short break in an attempt to regain his breath.

There was another cry from Dave. He wasn't sure, but he though that his matesprit might have been trying to say _run._

Gamzee was back on his feet now. Indigo oozed from between his teeth as he bared them at his victim, eyes flashing dangerously. "I'm motherfucking _sick_ of you motherfuckers beating me right the motherfuck up! We're ending this, Karbro!"

He barely had time to blink before a set of clawed hands closed around his upper arms and threw him back. Gamzee's clubs were back in his hands, claws still dripping with scarlet as he advanced. He kept moving forward, pressing Karkat back with every step, teeth bared in a threat that was anything but empty.

Karkat backed himself up bit by bit, mirroring his former moirail. He wasn't sure what he was up to, but—

His heels scraped the edge of the cliff.

 _Oh._

Gamzee laughed, low and rasping. The clown troll's injuries were beginning to take their toll. He was trembling lightly, spilling even more blood than Karkat, eyes wide and glassy. But he was still on his feet, still dangerous—and as he held up a club, pointing it in Karkat's direction, he realized that he was trapped. He was trapped, held between a crazed clown and a deadly drop, and no one was coming to help him. John was still out cold, Dave was bleeding out only a few feet away, and Jane was nowhere in sight.

Gamzee raised his club with a snarl. "Any last words, motherfucking best friend?"

Karkat tried to step back, then winced. His heels were right at the edge of the cliff, and rock crumbled off into the ocean when he put too much weight on them. There was no backing up, no fleeing to one side. No flying away. He looked down, and below them a series of rocks jutted out of the ocean. It was a long drop, and even if he survived it the rocks would surely kill him. It would kill anyone that hit them.

Something in his pan clicked.

Those rocks…would kill anyone that hit them.

He looked up at Gamzee. The troll was standing there, teeth bared, club raised, ready to kill. "No getting out of this one, best friend."

There wasn't. He either jumped to his death or let Gamzee beat his brains in; there was no way around that now. He had to choose.

And…looking over at Dave, seeing those wide, terrified eyes locked onto his…he knew what he would do.

"Are you gonna jump?" Gamzee taunted, no doubt seeing the way he was looking down at the ocean. "Or are you gonna let me smash your skull right in?"

He knew who he was.

"Well, Karbro? What's it gonna be?"

He knew what choice he would make to save them.

"Time's running short, best friend."

Either way, he was fucked. But if he could help his matesprit…

"Karbro…"

 _When the time comes, you will know what to do._

There was only one thing to do.

Karkat snarled, cutting his former moirail off. "Don't fucking talk to me, grubfucker! You've killed my moirail a dozen times, tormented my matesprit…you have no right to fucking antagonize me!"

Gamzee smirked. "That doesn't answer my question. How are you gonna go out?"

His stomach clenched. Unclenched. Clenched again. "Fucking heroically."

Gamzee paused. "What—?"

Karkat didn't think about what he did next. He didn't think about the way Dave was screaming for him. He didn't think about the way John was just starting to wake up, bright blue eyes flickering to life in the dark. He didn't think about the way he was lurching forward, hands reaching out to hook around Gamzee's neck. He didn't think about the way that harsh, unforgiving club was digging into his stomach as he pulled his former moirail close and pressed their bodies together. He didn't think about the way he stepped back, weight shifting with Gamzee atop him.

He certainly didn't think about the way he fell, Gamzee along with him, careening towards the bottom of the cliff.

 _If I'm going to die…I'm taking you with me._


	26. John and Dave: Cope

**Chapter 26:** **Dave and John: Cope**

* * *

Dave screamed as Karkat went over the edge of the cliff, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was too heavily injured to move, and John was only just starting to wake up.

"K-Karkat…!" he choked out, stretching one hand desperately towards the place where his matesprit had vanished. He _knew_ what was at the end of that drop. He _knew_ about the rocks, jagged and piercing, slicing up through the waves as a violent welcome to anyone unfortunate enough to fall.

 _Karkat…Karkat, please be okay! Please, please…you can't be gone! I did all of this to save you, and now…_

John groaned beside him, slowly coming back to his senses.

"J-John," Dave choked, "fucking w-wake up!" Then he groaned weakly, blood loss beginning to really take its toll. He couldn't fucking _move._

John sighed softly, rolling onto his side. And _fuck,_ this was exactly how things had gone the last time Gamzee had put the two of them down, with Dave struggling to get John on his feet, barely able to move himself. This time, though, a lot more was at stake than a lab full of equipment.

This time it was _Karkat._

"John!" he tried again, but his voice barely managed to find open air. "John, _please!"_

Another groan. "Dave…?"

 _"Yes,_ John, it's me—now get the fuck up, _now!"_

John just let out a soft noise of protest, rolling onto his other side, and for a moment Dave thought he was well and truly fucked, unable to scramble the cliffside and see for himself what had happened to his matesprit. But then a familiar voice sounded from behind him, and he'd never felt more relieved in his entire life.

"Dave, John!"

 _Jane._

And she wasn't alone. As she drifted into view, expression one of horror, Dave saw the others not far behind her. Everyonewas here. _Everyone._

"Hang on," Jane called, "I've got you." She extended her hands, and then Dave felt his entire body thrumming with healing magic. His wounds sealed slowly, painfully, and then he was free.

"Karkat!" he burst out the second he could talk. "Karkat, oh god—!"

He heard the people around him firing off questions, but he didn't respond. All he could see was Karkat's terrified face as he plunged off the edge of the cliff, and he flew as fast as he could to the edge and angled his body straight down to skim above the waves.

He was looking for _anything._ A body, a splatter of blood, the slightest tinge of indigo or scarlet. But there was nothing, no sign that anyone had ever been there. Karkat and Gamzee had been washed away entirely.

"Dave?" Rose called from the top of the cliff. "Is something wrong?"

He couldn't speak. All he could do was stare, eyes wide behind his shades, heart twisting in his chest, at the dark waves that had swallowed his matesprit whole. Even if he dove beneath the surface, even if he scoured the ocean floor, there would be no use. Even if Karkat had just been knocked unconscious by the waves, there was no way he could have survived being underwater this long, and at this point even his body would have been dragged away by the current. It had been at least five minutes, probably more, in between the time he'd vanished and the time Dave got to the water. And that could only mean one thing.

"Dave!" Rose called again. "Dave, come back up here and tell us what happened!"

He couldn't move. He was frozen.

"Dave…"

This voice was different. He managed to turn his head upon feeling someone grasping at his arm, and his heart lurched at what he saw.

"Dave," John repeated, features twisted into an expression of pure and utter agony.

 _He can feel it too. He knows what's happened. He knows that Karkat is…_

"Come on," John prompted, voice cracking painfully as he spoke. "Let's get back up there."

Dave moved, but only when John tugged him toward where the others were waiting. When he was back on solid ground he looked up, and he wasn't sure if it made him feel better or worse that Karkat was the only one of their group that had been lost.

"Dave!" Rose exclaimed. "Are you okay? What happened here?"

Dave bit into his bottom lip. He couldn't say it. He couldn't say that Karkat had died for _him,_ because he wasn't strong enough to defend himself alone against Gamzee.

"Dave?" Rose repeated, and her voice was beginning to shake as she no doubt pieced together that something was terribly wrong. "Dave, what…?"

He looked up, and his eyes found Sollux's. The troll was watching him with a dark, pained look.

 _You can feel it, same as me. Same as John._

Sollux flew forward just slightly and pushed Rose aside. He looked up at Dave, single eye brimming with something unreadable. "KK ith dead?"

He bowed his head. It was as good as a spoken agreement.

The entire group bristled with varying degrees of shock and horror.

"What?" Kanaya demanded. "He's dead? How did this happen?"

"Where's the body?" Dirk questioned, and though his words were harsh and callous, his features twitched with something akin to regret.

Nepeta hissed. "Hey, don't be rude!"

Dave took a step back, overwhelmed. He didn't think he could handle all these questions, didn't think he could—

"No," Eridan murmured, "that's a valid question. Where is the body?"

Dave flinched. Then, "Gone," he rasped. "He…he was fighting Gamzee, and then he just…" He made a helpless motion with his hands, voice caught in his throat.

"He went over the edge," Sollux finished in a knowing whisper. "And he took Gamzee with him."

Dave nodded. "That's right."

Eridan raised a brow. "Where's the body?" he repeated

Something snapped within him. "I don't fucking know where his body is! He went over the edge of that goddamn cliff; he was washed away with Gamzee!"

"So you never saw him die?" Rose questioned.

"Fuck, no, I didn't _see_ him die—but there's nothing but jagged rocks at the end of that fall, and he was obviously dragged underwater even if he _did_ survive! He's fucking dead, so don't give me false hope!"

"You didn't see him die," Rose repeated. She turned to Kanaya. "Do you think…?"

The troll stepped to the edge of the cliff and peered over. She frowned. "Hmm…that's such a long fall, and even if he was knocked unconscious instead of killed, he would have spent far too many minutes beneath the water, breathing it in…"

"It's possible that he floated to the surface, face sticking out of the water," Dirk pointed out. "Then he may have been washed away by the current. He could have been pulled miles out by now."

"Unlikely," Rose murmured. "But possible."

 _Don't say these things to me. Karkat is dead._

"You think that's true?" John whispered, and Dave wanted to _punch_ him for how genuinely hopeful he sounded. "He could be alive somewhere, like…floating around in the ocean?"

Eridan snorted. "Hardly. He'll be washed to shore before long, so if we're lookin' then we'll find him on the beach somewhere."

"Okay," John said, "so how do we find him? If he's alive, then—"

"He's _not_ fucking alive!" Dave roared, festering anger bursting forth in a single, terrible blow. "He's _dead_ , you moron, he went over the edge of that fucking cliff and he's never coming back! I don't know how you can sit here and keep saying that there's the possibility that he's alive; you didn't see him go over the edge of that—!"

 _Slap!_

Dave reeled backwards, fingertips brushing at the damaged flesh. "J-John…?"

The Heir just stood there, fists clenched at his sides, face turned towards the ground, droplets of liquid rolling down his face and splashing to the ground. "Don't say that," he whispered, and his voice was broken with small, hitching breaths. "Don't tell me that there's no way he's alive!"

Dave staggered back.

"He wasn't just your matesprit, you know! He was Sollux's kismesis, and my moirail, and you don't get to sit there acting like you're the only one affected by this! We all loved Karkat—and if even the people outside of his quadrants are ready to believe that he's alive out there, then you shouldn't just shut us down like you're the only person in the world who loved him!"

He blinked, stunned. John was…

Sollux drifted forward and landed beside John. One of the Gemini's arms wrapped around the human's shoulders, and he shot Dave a harsh look. "Are you really going to give up on your matethprit that eathily?"

"What?"

Sollux glared. "You pity KK, don't you?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then don't fucking give up on him, athhole!"

Water was closing in over his head, he thought. He wasn't the one that had fallen, but he was the one that was drowning.

"KK could thtill be alive! He could thtill be out there thomewhere, dragged out to thea or puthhed athhore on thome random beach! He could be waiting, unconsciouth, badly hurt, in need of help, and completely dependent on uth finding him! He can't _fly,_ shithead, have you forgotten that? If he'th thtranded, _we're_ the oneth that have to thave him!"

"H-he can't be alive," Dave insisted. "He can't be. He inhaled water, sank to the bottom of the ocean, was swept away…"

Sollux sneered, expression contorting furiously—and then he was moving forward, arm slipping from around John's shoulders as he prowled forward with a haze of psionics crackling between his horns. Before Dave could think to defend himself, shackles of red and blue clamping down on his wrists, his ankles, and forcefully slamming him onto his stomach.

"Dude, what the _fuck?"_ he gasped, struggling against the power holding him to the ground. He looked up to the others imploringly, but they did nothing. They were watching, cool and resolute, waiting for all the quadrant drama to work itself out.

A low growl met his ears. "I'm not letting you up until you agree to thtop thniveling and help uth look for KK!"

Tears were prickling at the corners of his eyes. _Oh, fuck, I'm_ not _going to let myself cry in front of this asshole. Striders don't cry in front of_ anyone!

"What'th it going to be, Thtrider?"

"He's _dead,"_ Dave choked out in a whisper, and _fuck,_ his voice was wavering and giving him away. Moisture was clinging to his lashes, though no one could tell through his shades.

"Yeah, I know you think he'th fucking dead! But if there'th even a chanthe that he'th out there, don't you _owe_ him the dethenthy of looking? What would he think if you jutht _gave up on him?"_

Something inside him cracked.

"If there'th even the thmalletht chanthe that KK is thtill alive out there, then I'm willing to thearch until I die! But if you're too cluckbeatht to rithk your life for your own matethprit, it'th obviouth that you never really pitied him at all!"

That something cracked further, hairline fissures turning into canyons.

"You're pathetic," Sollux sneered, tightening his psionic grip until it was near painful. "And not in a red way."

It split in two. Oh, had that been his heart?

"Fucking _pathetic!"_

"Sollux, that's enough!"

Dave jolted as Sollux's psionic hold was forcefully removed from around his wrists, John darting in with a gust of air to separate the two of them.

"John!" Sollux protested. "This athhole is ready to fucking abandon KK, and you're jutht going to let him—?"

John shifted, and then Dave was staring up at his back as he shielded him from view. "You guys," the Heir said, "maybe you should leave."

"We can't leave yet!" Rose protested. "We're going to look for Karkat!"

Dave lifted his head. _They're really going to search for a dead troll?_

"I know you are," John soothed, "but I think the search effort should be coordinated elsewhere."

"But the longer we wait, the further his body will be washed away!"

John shook his head. "The damage has been done. Please, Rose…take the others back to the lab. Some of you guys are still injured, and even more are probably exhausted."

Rose looked back to her surrounding ensemble. True to word, half of them looked about to drop dead. "Very well," she relented. "We'll begin coordinating the search back at the lab. Will you be joining us there soon?"

Dave caught John's worried eyes flickering back to meet his own. "Yeah, I think so." He swung his head to Sollux. "Sol, go with them."

"What?" He bristled, furious.

"You heard me. Get out of here and help set up a search party."

Sollux sneered, practically foaming at the mouth. But he listened to his auspice, as he was obligated to do, and allowed Aradia to flutter down and lead him away by the arm as the others slowly began to head back for the lab.

In a matter of moments, Dave was left alone with his best friend.

"So," John murmured.

Dave curled in on himself. His eyes were still burning with unshed tears, and he didn't want to look weak. All he wanted to do was go to sleep and never wake up, because Karkat _had_ to be gone.

John shifted, then kneeled at his side. "Oh, Dave…"

He winced as John's hand settled on his shoulder, heavy and warm. He didn't want to face anyone right now.

"Dave, come on…look at me."

He shook his head. Even his shades weren't enough to hide just what was churning beneath the surface right now, and he hated it.

John's fingertips brushed lightly down his arm, back up to his shoulder, over to his cheek. Then he gasped, breathing, "Are you _crying?"_

Dave swatted his hand away. "No! I'm not fucking crying!"

John fell silent. Then, "It's okay to feel things, you know."

He didn't answer. He couldn't.

"Oh, geez…look, I know you're Mr. Stoic and all, but I think this situation is a little different than usual."

God, John was miserable at comforting people. How could Karkat stand him as a moirail?

"It's just…you're always hiding your emotions and expelling them in unhealthy ways, like you're directing your anger and grief at other people and picking fights just to keep yourself from realizing that you're actually _feeling_ something. I think that's probably why you pushed Karkat away in the beginning, because you were afraid of your own emotions and afraid that feeling something would make you weak, because that's how you were raised."

Dave tensed. "John."

"And this time is no different! You really love Karkat, more than anything else, and now that there's a chance that he's dead you're just lashing out because you think you're not allowed to grieve, and you think that him being alive and out there somewhere injured and afraid is worse than him being dead and at rest, so you're trying _so hard_ to make yourself believe that he's not suffering."

"John."

"But it's _okay_ , Dave, it really is. It's okay to feel things. It's okay to feel afraid for Karkat, it's okay to feel hope that he might still be alive, and it's okay to feel grief when you think about the fact that he might be dead."

 _"John."_

"If you need to grieve, then you should do it! But you should also _look_ for him, because you love him and you have a responsibility to your matesprit, to make sure he's never in pain! If there's even the slightest chance he's still alive, you _need_ to look for him. You need to look, and you need to handle your grief without lashing out at everyone around you, and you need to learn that it's okay to feel things!"

 _"John!"_

He froze, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. And Dave…

Dave just stared blankly at the ground, shades misting around the edges, heart tearing itself into pieces, because John was _right._ And maybe _that_ was how Karkat could stand him as a moirail, because while he wasn't the best for comfort's sake, he _was_ the best at looking you dead in the eyes and telling you exactly what going on inside your heart.

"Dave?" John whispered.

He opened his mouth to say something in response, but all that came out was a desperate whine that was so soft, so choked, so _weak—_ and that was okay. It was all okay.

"J-John," he breathed out, still curled up on his side where Sollux had left him, and it was _too much._ It was too much, and so when John reached for him he met him halfway, arms outstretched to grab onto his best friend like a particularly clingy koala and pull him close. But that wasn't right, that wasn't good; his shades were pressing painfully into his face as John's shoulder mashed them upwards, and so he reached off and removed them with a second thought, placed them on the ground beside them.

John sucked in a shaky breath. "That's it…it's okay, Dave. It's okay to grieve."

And it was. It really, truly was—and so when Dave stabbed his fingernails into the backs of John's shoulder blades, clawed as close as he could, and shoved his face into the soft juncture between neck and shoulder, he couldn't quite bring himself to feel as ashamed as he should have.

When he started to cry, John didn't say a thing.

†††

After that, the search effort began.

Rose was a brilliant coordinator, and she spent most of her time for the days that followed organizing the sweep of the surrounding area. Everyone was assigned to a different area, and with the help of Jane's system of teleporters (which was quickly expanding to ridiculous proportions) the search was moving nicely.

First and foremost, Eridan and Feferi were dispatched to the sea. The two of them were perfect for the task of searching over the ocean floor for any sign of Karkat or Gamzee, their gills and fins allowing them to travel great distances without having to come up for air. In a matter of days the two of them had scanned for miles around the mainland, following the tides in every conceivable direction in an attempt to locate even a trace of the missing trolls.

While the seadwellers worked their magic, Terezi attempted to access her powers yet again, but this time in an effort to see if she could manage to sense Karkat anywhere in the area. She hadn't gotten it down yet, but she was working as hard as she could. If she could locate even a flicker of Karkat's consciousness, it would all be worth it.

Meanwhile, Tavros used his powers to communicate with all the lusus creatures in the miles around the village, hoping that one of them would see something pertaining to Karkat's location. When none of the creatures around the village knew anything, he began traveling around with his weird rocket legs and talking with the lusus creatures that lived further out, then further out still.

As Tavros flew around talking to animals, Dirk, Equius, and Sollux banded together and put their minds together in expanding the system of thermal scanners. They knew Karkat's heat signature, so if they could just expand their system far enough, there was a chance they could spot him on the radar. So far…nothing.

Vriska, for her part, spent her days flying around and throwing her dice every which way, hoping for something to help her find Karkat. She tended to stick near Nepeta and Jade, who banded together to crash through far-off forests in case Karkat had managed to drag himself out of the water and up to the trees.

While they searched the forest, Aradia scanned the coastline to the east. Roxy and Jake joined up to comb through the west, and when she wasn't back at the lab helping Kanaya coordinate search parties, Rose soared curved around the southern coastline just in case Karkat had somehow been washed fully around the village. Wherever she went—wherever _anyone_ went—Jane wasn't far behind with her portals, Callie coming along to help.

Everyone was working. Everyone was trying _so hard_ to find Karkat—and that included Dave.

It still hurt. It hurt every day he went out to search, John at his side, and came back with no sign of his matesprit. It hurt terribly, twisting his insides and knotting them into miserable tangles that he couldn't ever manage to undo. John helped, he thought. He helped more than he ever thought possible, and the two of them ended up clinging to each other most nights in an attempt to cope with the fact that Karkat was _gone_.

They'd worked out a system over the past few days. No…actually, that wasn't right. It had been a week. Over a week, and they'd managed to set up the most miserable schedule Dave could imagine.

In the morning, Dave would drag John up from wherever they'd crashed that night, getting the two of them on their feet and pulling something out of their sylladex to eat. Normally they'd try to pick somewhere relatively sheltered, but they were still out in the wilderness. They'd chosen to go off of Jane's system of portals, just flying around and searching of their own accord, hoping their hearts would be enough to lead them right to their vanished quadrant.

After awakening, the two of them would soar off in the chosen direction for that day, calling out and searching around and flitting out over the water in hopes that Karkat would be there. They'd break for lunch sometimes, sometimes not, then keep going until the moon was high in the sky and they were nearly dead from exhaustion. They'd search out a good place to rest for the night, eat something, then huddle together in silence as the moon started to sink and the suns started to rise and they didn't sleep a wink. It had become a habit to sit there, muscles stiff from the cold, and just think about everything they'd done, and everything that had been done to them.

"Do you really think he's out there?" Dave asked one night, voice raspy from the yelling he'd been engaging in for the past few days.

And John just sighed, expression a medley of desperation and dying hope, and said, "He has to be."

But as the days passed, and no one found a thing, that became harder and harder to believe.

†††

When Rose appeared before them one night, Dave wasn't surprised. Rather, his heart sank so far into his stomach that he thought it might just burst out through his feet and go careening into the planet's crust. Because he _knew_ that expression, knew what he was about to be told, and he hated it.

"John," Rose whispered. "Dave."

They didn't even ask how she'd found them. They just stared, the two of them heartsick and exhausted and weathered by weeks of nothing, and waited.

Rose's gaze softened. "The others have been talking. It's been a month since we started looking, and we haven't found even a trace of Karkat or Gamzee."

Dave felt John's fingers threading through his.

"We think that maybe…"

 _It's time to give up._

She didn't say it, but they all knew what she meant.

John's fingers squeezed around his, nails biting painfully into the flesh. Dave didn't say a thing, though. He didn't want to break.

"You can keep searching for as long as you want, of course," Rose went on, softly. "None of us are going to stop you, and we'll _always_ have an eye on the horizon for him. But the others are moving on, and…I think it's time, too."

Dave heard a sniffle from behind him. John was crying.

"Do you want me to show you back to the village?" Rose asked. "I have a portal, if—"

"No," Dave said immediately, and he knew he spoke for both himself and John when he told her, "I think we need to be alone."

"How will you get back?"

Dave looked to John. He had his head bowed, tears dripping steadily down the bridge of his nose and plopping to the sandy earth. They never strayed too far from the shore, so it was always sandy now.

 _Will we ever go back?_

Rose waited. But then, seeing that she wasn't going to receive an answer, her expression twisted painfully. "I see," she whispered. "In that case, I wish the two of you luck. No matter what happens, you're family. Just…keep in touch."

Dave jerked his head away. "Yeah…see you around, Rose."

She gave them a brief nod, then was gone.

He turned back to John. "Well?"

John sniffed again. "What?"

"What are we going to do?"

John shrugged miserably. "What do you want to do?"

A moment of hesitation. He knew, but…what if John disagreed?

John seemed to sense his uncertainty. "Dave," he murmured, "you don't have to worry about me. Just tell me what we're going to do, and I'll be with you."

A wave of relief washed over him, and it was so strong that he was surprised it didn't wash him clean off his feet. "I want to keep looking. Not forever, but…for as long as it takes."

John wiped at his eyes. "Then we're on the same page."

And they were.

For the next two months, they would search endlessly.

Until one day, they would return home with empty hearts.

†††

When Dave returned to town, John at his side, it looked like a different place entirely.

All the damaged buildings had been repaired and expanded, and the village was twice the size it had been when they left. It was thriving, dersites and prospitarians fluttering every which way with happy smiles and excited chattering. In addition, several new homes had sprung up all around the settlement.

As they made their way further into the village, they saw that Equius and Nepeta had made their homes right next to each other in the center of town. Vriska had constructed hers out next to John's place. Tavros had gone out to the fields in the west not far from Dirk and Jake, and Sollux and Aradia had moved into the area around Karkat's house. Eridan had taken the cliffs behind Karkat's house as his own, and Feferi was presumably based out in the ocean somewhere, though she seemed happy to hang out around town while she wasn't swimming.

When the two humans returned to town for the first time, everyone went quiet. The villagers all turned and looked, as if sensing what they'd been through, and the trolls that saw them arrive immediately skittered off. They knew why in a few minutes, when Rose appeared out of nowhere to greet them.

"John," she said, just like she had two months prior, the last time they'd spoken. "Dave. You're back."

Neither of them cried this time. John just nodded resolutely, and Dave bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Rose just watched them, then, expression pained. And then she was hugging them, one arm around each of their necks, and she was whispering in their ear, _"I'm so sorry."_

Dave muttered something about it not being her fault, patting her back. And it wasn't her fault, really. They'd all done as much as could be expected, and Karkat…

 _He's just not coming home._

"Things have changed here," Rose explained once she'd released them. "So much is different…I know you're going to love it." But her tone was resigned, as if she knew that she was fighting a losing battle. John and Dave would recover on their own time, not before. "Do you…want to rest? See the others?"

Dave glanced to John. Then, "Rest," he decided. "We're going home."

There wasn't really any question as to where home was. Rose dipped her head, telling them, "It hasn't been touched."

Dave murmured his thanks. Then he was grabbing John and flying off to the southern area of the village, and even though there were two new homes standing tall there, Karkat's little lawn ring hadn't changed in the least. His home was the same as it had always been—and when John and Dave landed on the stoop and pushed open the door, it even _smelled_ the same, stuffed full of a scent that was musky and thick and so achingly _Karkat_ that it brought tears to their eyes.

"Come on," Dave managed to choke out. "Let's rest."

The two of them crashed in the master bedroom, a mess of tangled limbs and muddled emotions. And that was how they awoke the next morning, then the next, and the next after that as they struggled to adjust.

Every day weighed on them more and more. Sometimes John would open his mouth, that strange look in his eye, and Dave _knew_ that he was about to try to say something that was really meant for Karkat, meant for the pale romance the two of them had been so proud of. But the he would wince, realize who he was talking to, and look away. And Dave…well…he thought he was beginning to understand the idea of moirallegiance.

So when there was a knock at the door one day, and he opened it to find _Kanaya_ of all people standing there, he thought he knew exactly what she meant when she said, "Would you like me to help you and John with dinner tonight?"

 _I understand,_ she said. _I was close to Karkat, so close that I considered going pale for him at one point. And now he's gone, and you two were just figuring things out, and…I'm so sorry. Please, talk to me. It hurts to see you this way._

It was sudden. _So_ sudden, and Dave had no clue why it happened. But it did, and he had someone other than John to flap his gums at, and so he did.

John went to Terezi. He always tried to make excuses, hide that he was doing it, but it never worked. He'd come back with bite marks on his lips and purpled eyes, and Dave would know.

 _We're moving on,_ he realized once, and his heart was being ripped out of his chest as he thought it. _Building quadrants we never expected to have as humans._ And it _hurt_ , it really did—but he knew that Karkat would be happy to know they had people to fawn over other than him.

Life moved on for them. The two of them, still living in the same house, still fighting the same battles, pulled themselves forward one day at a time and started to climb. One month passed. Then two. And then, suddenly, it had been five months since Karkat had vanished over the edge of that cliff. Five months, and they were living just like they should. Going out, talking to their friends, pretending that their hearts weren't missing a colossal, Karkat-sized chunk.

Pretending that everything was okay when it wasn't.

But after a while, whereas every day had used to add just a bit of weight to their shoulders, each passing sunrise began to take just a sliver of it away.

"We're never going to be okay," John had said in the beginning. But now, five months later, he looked to Dave and said, "I think I was wrong." And he was.

Slowly, they settled into their normal lives once again. They weren't happy, not yet—but they were working their way there. Five months later, they were working their way there. Six months later, they were working their way there.

 _This is us now. This is us, without Karkat._

†††

Sharp thuds of claws on wood thudded through the house, jerking Dave out of a fitful sleep all at once.

"Ouch!" John yelped from beside him, and Dave realized that he'd pulled his hair on accident. This was one habit they still hadn't broken; sleeping in the same bed. Neither of them spoke of it, but it was a constant in an otherwise unstable world. It comforted them.

"Sorry," Dave murmured, listening for the telltale shriek of claws against their front door. And sure enough, there it was again—this time accompanied by a voice that could have pierced through lead.

"Hey, you miserable chumsuckers! Get the fuck down here, I've got somefin you need to see!"

John groaned. "Eridan?"

"Sounds like," Dave agreed, rolling his eyes. He reached to the bedside table and grabbed his shades, shoving them onto his face. He'd started taking them off more often lately, first around John and then around Kanaya. "Come on, I guess we should see what good ol' fishface wants on this fine morning."

"Morning?" John complained. "It's like, three o'clock!"

Dave shrugged. "Trolls are nocturnal, dude."

John promptly beat him over the head with a pillow.

"Woah, okay, point taken!" Dave flew out of bed. He was still in his god tier pajamas, which he'd put on the day before to go fly around with Rose and hadn't bothered to change out of. He grabbed John by the arm and hauled him up, and it was so much like those mornings in the wilderness when they were searching for Karkat that it made his chest ache. "Let's go, man."

"Fine, fine…" John (also in his god tier pajamas, since he never really took them off) drifted towards the doorway with Dave only a few feet ahead.

Eridan's pounding on the door grew louder as they reached the living room. "Cod, you two are useless! Open this fuckin' door!"

"We're coming, we're coming!" Dave let go of John to reach for the door and push it open, and—

"Fuckin' finally!" Eridan roared, eyes wide, expression a mess of excitement and terror. "I've been out here for hours!"

"It's been five minutes," Dave scoffed. "Now what do you want?"

Wordlessly, Eridan held up a dark scrap of _something_.

Dave eyed it distastefully. "What the fuck is that?"

"Just _take_ it!" he snapped.

Dave curled up his nose, ready to turn away, but John stopped him by reaching out and relieving Eridan of the strange thing in his hand.

"It's cloth," John said, surprised. "What…?" He unfolded it, wincing as it dripped water all over the doorway. He started working the fabric in an attempt to unfold the creases and sooth away the wrinkles with his fingertips. "What's it supposed to be?"

"Turn it _over_ , you fuckin' dirtblood!"

"Oh!" John grinned goofily and grasped the cloth by the edges, turning it over. And then his smile drained away in a single heartbeat, a snap of a moment, and he was staring in shock at the sopping wet scrap of fabric.

"John?" Dave asked, chest twinging with concern. Then he huffed, seeing that John had no intention of moving, and decided to take matters into his own hands. He reached out, snatched the thing from his friend's fingertips, and—

And he _recognized_ it. Fingers shaking, heart beating frantically in his chest, he ran his fingers across the symbol stitched into the center of the patch of fabric. It wasn't a full symbol, having been torn off around the edges, but it was more than enough for him to recognize the familiar stitching, nails raking across the gray threads with a feather-light touch.

He would never forget the look of Karkat's symbol.

Dave stared, uncomprehending. "What the _fuck_ is this?"

"What do you think it is?" Eridan sneered.

"I think it's a joke," Dave said, voice wavering. "A fucking cruel joke, and you can get the fuck out of here!"

"Do you really think that's somefin I would do? Am I _really_ that awful a troll through your eyes?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know? We've spoken all of three times; you're never even in town!"

"And why, exactly, do you think I haven't been in town? Because I've been _searchin',_ you grub-fisted fuckloaf!"

"Searching for what?" Dave snarled. "For _Karkat?"_ And oh god, even saying the name made his heart twist itself into knots.

"For any sign that he wasn't krilled by that fall, or by the sea!" Eridan snatched the cloth back, fins flaring out in an obvious display of anger. "I've charted every single current flowin' around on this miserable chunk of rock we call a planet, hopin' to find some sort of pattern! I've worked my ass off for you dirtbloods, and when I finally come up with somefin solid you decide to push me away!"

"What do you mean, _come up with something solid?"_

"Are you a fuckin' idiot?" Eridan waved the cloth, eyes flashing with anger. "I don't know if you've noticed, but this is a piece of Kar's shirt! I found it driftin' along on a current a couple hundred miles out!"

"So what? He fell _into the ocean._ It makes sense that a part of his fucking shirt would show up!"

"No, you don't understand!" Eridan spat. He stretched the cloth back out and ran the pad of his finger over the gray threads. "Look at the threads. Notice anyfin strange?"

Dave and John both leaned close, eyeing the silvery design.

"Cod," Eridan groaned, "you two don't know a thing. Look, these threads are fuckin' delicate! If this scrap of cloth had been floatin' around in the ocean for six months, they'd be dissolved to nothin'! It'd just be a bit of black fabric buried at the bottom of the ocean."

For just a moment, his heart lurched with a hope he hadn't felt in months. But he was swift to clamp down on that hope, because he wasn't going to let himself go through the pain of losing Karkat all over again. He didn't think his heart could take it.

"What are you saying?" John whispered, and Dave could tell that he was feeling the same.

Eridan looked between them both, and his eyes—just barley starting to turn violet—shimmered with something akin to terrified excitement. "I'm sayin' that this scrap of cloth couldn't have been in the ocean for more than a week. And if that's true, then _someone_ would have had to throw it into the water."

"It could have been some random lusus creature," Dave offered, even as his heart flickered with nervousness. "Maybe it found Karkat's body and tore his shirt, then…threw the patch into the water?" It sounded weak, even to his own ears.

Eridan snorted. "Right. Even if that _was_ the case—and it's not, just so you know—then at the very least, we know that his body _is_ out there somewhere."

"Six months decayed," Dave reminded him.

"You can't be sure of that."

This was bringing up far too many memories. "Look, Ampora. I know you mean well and all that jazz, but we're done searching. Karkat has to be dead."

"And I'm tellin' you that I can help you find his body, even if that's the case!"

"How is a scrap of cloth supposed to lead us to Karkat?"

Eridan smirked, a wide expression full of fangs. "It's not the cloth that's important, it's where it _was."_ He gestured outside excitedly. "It was hangin' around in a _very_ defined current, runnin' right out deep in the center of the ocean."

"So what?"

 _"So,_ that current had to have carried that scrap from _somewhere!_ And if I trace the flow of water back to its source, I think I might be able to figure out just where Kar ended up."

Hope. Sharp and blinding, it pierced through him.

"Like I said, there's no concrete evidence that he wasn't krilled by the fall, or by the water. But even if it's just his body we're after, I think we should go for it."

Dave glanced to John, chest tight. After searching for so long, then living for even longer with the knowledge that they would never find Karkat…did they really want to rip open healing wounds? Could they take another disappointment?

"Well?" Eridan asked impatiently. "I've already traced the path of the current, do you want to come or not?"

Still, Dave waited for John. _I'll go,_ he thought, and the ease with which he made the decision to throw himself back into heartbreak was enough to give him whiplash. _I'll go, because even if it just ends in me finding my matesprit's body—or what remains of it—at least that will mean closure. At least it will mean that the sleepless nights will eventually fade. But first…John, what will you do?_

John's eyes were glazed as he stared at the ground. He was living out the past, no doubt, seeing just how devastated he'd been when he finally forced himself to admit that Karkat was gone. But even with all his pain, all his misery, his decision was obvious to all who knew him. "I'll go," he offered, looking to Dave for confirmation. "Even if it just makes it hurt more, I'll go."

Dave dipped his head in agreement. "My thoughts exactly."

Eridan rolled his eyes. "You're heroic as fuck. Now do you want to leave now, or sleep the rest of the night away?"

Again, John spoke for them both. "We'll go now."

They went.

†††

They didn't tell anyone where they were going. They figured that if Eridan's lead turned out to mean nothing, it was better not to get anyone's hopes up. Sollux in particular wouldn't take it well, and he was _just_ starting to become secure enough in his moirallegiance with Aradia and his matespritship with Feferi to start to let go of his lost kismesissitude. John even kept their journey from Terezi, who he'd developed an odd sort of black romance with, and Dave kept it from Kanaya in return. His poor friend had dealt with enough of his shit in the past six months, and he didn't want to trouble her.

Dave squawked suddenly as water was splashed up onto his face. "What the fuck, dude?"

But Eridan was already back below the surface of the water, swimming just fast enough to lead John and Dave along the current that had carried the scrap of Karkat's shirt. Apparently Eridan had never followed the current this far before, so he didn't know if there was an island or something out here, but he seemed confident that there had to be some kind of landmass _somewhere_.

"Focus, Dave!" John called, speeding up. His phone was out, opened to a thermal camera that he was aiming around at the empty waves. None of Dirk's scanners were out here, so the best they could do was fling their shitty cameras around at random, hoping to catch a glimpse of something.

Dave snorted. "Right. _Focus._ Focus on the empty water."

Eridan poked his head above water just long enough to roll his eyes, then dove back down with a huff. _Really getting tired of your shit,_ that expression screamed. And that made two of them, because Dave was _really fucking tired_ of following the arrogant sea troll around the entire ocean. They'd been flying for _hours._ At top speed they could cover miles in no time at all, but that didn't mean it was _easy._ Especially not while tensions were running so high.

John drew up at his side. "How are you doing?" he asked softly.

"You mean with the whole 'finding my matesprit's body' thing? Just peachy, man. How are you?"

John smiled at him with an amused tilt of the head. "I'm…relieved."

"Relieved?" he echoed.

"Yeah," John said. "Relieved. It'll be over soon, you know."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, we're going to find Karkat." He reached down and skimmed his fingers through the dark water, sending up a spray that misted across Dave's shades annoyingly. "If Eridan is right, then at the end of this current we'll find closure. Karkat will either be dead, and we'll know it's time to move on, or he'll be alive, and we'll be able to take him home."

"But he'll probably be dead," Dave said, mostly for himself. "I mean, if he's still alive, then why wouldn't he find some way off wherever he's stranded? He should have enough build grist to make a boat or some shit, or at the very least he should have a computer on him to troll us with! I can't believe that he's just _out there,_ waiting to be found."

John shrugged. "Anything is possible."

Dave looked away with a huff. "Right."

Something splashed up tremendously. "Hey!"

They drew to a halt as Eridan popped out of the water, portable computer in his hand. How the thing wasn't destroyed by the water was a mystery, but Dave supposed that sea trolls probably had their ways.

"What is it?" John asked, concerned.

Eridan just brandished his phone in response. "There's land up ahead."

"What?" Dave looked up, but could spot nothing on the horizon. "How do you know?"

"The fuckin' radar, genius! It's bouncin' right off a small landmass not far from here. Keep your thermals trained on it, would you?"

 _Land? Right in the path of the current that took that scrap of Karkat's t-shirt towards us?_

Eridan dove beneath the water, Dave just staring after him, and only a sharp word from John got him moving again. _It has to be a coincidence or something. There's no way…_

"Land!" John whooped in excitement, looping in midair as trees finally poked up from above the horizon. There was actual fucking _land_ out there, land that was illuminated by the by the beautiful sear of the suns dipping beneath the horizon, one just slightly below the other. And they were getting close.

Dave sped up without thinking as they neared the island. Karkat couldn't be alive, but he was filled with anticipation at the thought of _knowing._ After six months of guessing, he may be about to figure everything out for himself.

"Dave!" John called. "Slow down!"

He didn't even hear him. He sped up, overtaking even Eridan, and tore towards the beach. He was straining muscles he hadn't even known he _had,_ flying beyond top speed. And then he was _there,_ placing his feet upon the sandy beach and staring around with a wild sort of hope, and John and Eridan were drawing up beside him.

"So," John said awkwardly, "this is it?" He looked up, taking in the sprawling trees and bright white sand. It was almost tropical.

"This is it," Eridan agreed. He squinted up with eyes that were primed for darkness. "The current runs straight around this island, so it's the perfect place for someone to drop somefin into it and have it carried right on across the ocean."

"Well, I'm not seeing anything," Dave muttered. Sure enough, there was nothing on the beach but sand.

"It's a large island, dipshit," Eridan growled. "Come on, let's split up and search."

That was exactly what they did. Making sure to set up a conference call using the same earpieces they'd donned during the battle, the three split and went their separate ways. John crashed into the forest, Eridan decided to swim the area to the west, and Dave took the east.

 _Come on, Karkat,_ he thought, soaring just over the beach and scanning from side to side. _Please be here…please be here, even if it's just your body I'm finding._

He searched for what felt like hours, the others reporting the same as him—nothing. He searched until he thought his limbs were about to fall off and his brain was about to liquefy and fall out his ears from the heat. He searched forever and then some more.

And so when he finally caught a flicker of _something,_ he thought it was his imagination at first.

 _What the fuck is that?_ Dave flew over to the dark shape smeared out across the beach, a mixture of horror and anticipation churning in his gut. If that was Karkat, lying dead…

But no—the closer he got, the more he realized that the figure was far too large to be Karkat. He was a beast, even _deflated_ as he was, and Dave caught flickers of indigo as he drew closer, first from a torn symbol on his chest and then from remnants of blood that had been shed months prior.

 _Gamzee Makara._

Dave landed beside his body, gagging at the stench. The hot weather wasn't good for preservation, and it had obviously been a long time since the troll had died. Hell, maybe he'd been dead when he originally washed up here six or so months ago. Whatever the case, he'd had a _long_ time to break down, and it smelled _hideous._

He fought the urge to throw up as he phoned Eridan and John, saying, "Hey, guys? I found Gamzee."

 _"Really?"_ John asked, stunned. _"Is he alive?"_

"Nope. Dead as a doornail. A very mushy, smelly doornail."

 _"Fuckin' gross!"_ Eridan snapped.

Dave shrugged. Then, realizing they couldn't see it, he said, "Well, at least we know that this is probably where Karkat ended up. The two were latched onto each other pretty hard when they hit the water, so it's not impossible they hung onto each other for the whole ride, especially if one of them was still alive."

 _"Oh, geez…"_ John sucked in a shuddering breath. _"I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse."_

 _"Definitely worse,"_ Eridan grumbled. _"But it's not like we can give up now."_

"No," Dave agreed, "but we should probably call it a night, huh?" He looked up at the sky. Already the moon was high in the sky, and the island had cooled considerably. "Not like we can do much when we can't see well."

 _"Yeah,"_ John agreed. _"Meet up where we first stepped onto the island? We can set up camp on the beach."_

"Sounds good to me."

 _"Yeah, why the fuck not?"_

 _"Great! Then I'll see you both there."_

The earpiece buzzed, and the messages stopped. John and Eridan would be heading back to where they'd agreed to camp, and Dave would follow.

The human sighed, running a hand through his hair. His eyes raked the treeline, and his heart ached as he realized that finding Karkat like this—dead, decaying, nearly turned to mush in the sand—was a very real possibility.

 _Maybe…it was better not knowing._

He tried to take a few steps forward, then groaned as he stumbled over thin air. _Fuck…I need a torch or some shit._ He pulled his phone out and fiddled with it for a moment. Then he yelped as he nearly blinded himself with the flashlight feature, fumbling the device and accidentally raking the beam across the trees. It was fucking _bright._

Cursing, he managed to aim the beam back at the ground. Later, he thought, they would have to have a conversation about Jane potentially trying to bring Gamzee back to life. But for now, he was content to use the light to make his way forward, feet sinking into the sand with every step, the stench of death still in the air.

Something rustled in the trees. He paused. _Did I hear just something?_

Dave turned his face towards the dark lines of the forest, but all he could see was a blur of nothingness. He shrugged, then kept moving when the sound didn't repeat itself. _Must have imagined it._

There was another rustle, and okay, _that_ one he'd definitely heard. He aimed his beam of light towards the trees, but nothing was there.

 _Hmm…time to investigate._

Dave made sure the flashlight was turned up as high as it would go, then started crunching up the beach towards the place where sand gave way to trees. He was tense, every hair on end as he waited for some lusus creature to launch out of the trees and attack him.

He readied his sword when he heard the rustle again. Slowly, carefully, he stepped into the trees and aimed the beam around.

A rustle. A growl. And then red eyes shining in the darkness, making Dave jump back with a startled yelp.

 _I was right—a lusus creature!_ Then he paused. _Wait…since when do lusus creatures have red eyes?_

The growl deepened. The eyes flashed with something—confusion, maybe? Alarm? But Dave didn't have time to think about it, because suddenly there was movement, suddenly the thing was moving forward, and suddenly— _suddenly—_

Suddenly it was launching itself out of the trees and straight onto Dave, heedless of the sword pointed right at its abdomen, plastering itself flat to his body and nearly knocking him straight to the ground and _shuddering_ as if its insides were being wrenched out through its pores.

And then the thing choked out a single word, and Dave realized that it wasn't an _it,_ it was a _him._

 _"Dave."_

And that _him_ just so happened to be Karkat Vantas.

His body caught up before his mind did. Dave reached out without really realizing what he was doing and drew his matesprit close to him as if he'd just seen him yesterday, loose and relaxed and just content to be near someone he trusted. His mind was sprinting about a thousand miles behind, confused and reeling and wondering _how the fuck this was happening right now._

"Dave," Karkat whined again. _"Dave."_

And then his mind really _did_ catch up, hurling him at about a hundred leagues forward into the current situation, and he gasped in a mixture of shock and relief, then broke down.

Without giving it a second thought Dave clawed at his matesprit, pulling him to him until he thought he would crack, and took the two of them to their knees with a heavy thud. He thought that kissing Karkat sounded _really fucking good,_ a way to bat down the tidal wave of emotions that was just too much for him to feel all at once, but he couldn't bring himself to draw away long enough to do so. And so he just sat there, Karkat clinging to him as if to let go would be to die, and tried to figure out how he was supposed to feel _everything._ He wanted to say something, wanted to put voice to the war within him, but all that managed to escape was a small squeak.

"D-Dave," Karkat said again, and Dave thought that maybe it was the only thing he remembered how to say. "O-oh gog, I thought—!" He cut himself off in a dry, choking sob that took about one second to turn sloppy-wet.

Dave felt tears soaking into his shoulder, felt the fabric of _Karkat's_ shoulder growing damp, and he realized that he was crying, too. "Yeah," he managed, even as his throat closed in on itself. "Yeah, I thought, too…"

Karkat sniffed messily. His shirt was going to be saturated with the troll's weird pink snot.

"How?" Dave rasped when he finally gained the breath to speak again. Karkat was squeezing the life out of him, but he didn't care. "How are you alive?"

There was the slightest tensing in the muscles pressed firm to his stomach. Then Karkat pressed his forehead down into his chest, and he whispered, "Gills."

"Um… _what?"_

Karkat blushed furiously, and even though Dave couldn't see it, he could _feel_ it. He could feel the heat against his skin. "Gills," he repeated in a low, scandalized whisper. "I have gills."

"The question stands. _What?"_

His blush deepened. Then he was leaning back, drawing a needy whine from his matesprit, and reaching for his shirt. Dave watched as he yanked it up with a nervous bite at his lower lip, and suddenly _there they were._

"Holy fuck," Dave whispered, leaning forward and letting his fingertips hover just over the long slits that ran for a solid four inches over his sides, curling just barely onto his stomach and his back. "You weren't fucking kidding." He looked up at Karkat, realization cracking across his mind, and he said, "This is why you would never let me get your shirt off?"

Karkat nodded guiltily. "I missed all the rocks when I fell, but the impact still knocked me out…I sank to the bottom and got hauled away from the mainland, but I kept breathing underwater."

Dave sat back with a huff. His head was spinning. "And Gamzee?"

"He doesn't have gills. Fuck, _I'm_ not supposed to have them! It's just another result of my fucked up mutations, just like Sollux's horns and his eyes and his tongue and those _voices,_ yet another _amazing_ thing I've had to deal with my entire life!"

"Karkat, why didn't you _tell_ me?"

The troll let his shirt fall back down—a shirt, Dave realized, that was missing a Cancer symbol. There wasn't an empty hole or anything, it was just a shirt without any kind of marking. Plain and black. "I couldn't tell _anyone."_

"But _why_ couldn't you tell anyone?" Dave demanded, fingers digging into the soft earth. "Fuck, Karkat, I thought you were _dead!_ I thought you were dead, and if I'd known that you had gills then maybe I wouldn't have killed myself over thinking that you were gone!"

Karkat flinched, curling in on himself so that his gills were held protectively behind his bent legs. "I'm fucking sorry! But if I'd told you about it, there was the chance that you would think I was disgusting—I have _eight,_ you know, not the usual six, and two of them don't even fucking _work—_ and I couldn't fucking take it if we got over all that shit we went through and then you ditched me because of one of my mutations!"

 _Oh god, he's not serious._

The troll looked away, expression a mixture of guilt and pain. "I would have told you if I could, but—hey!"

Karkat shut up, then—but he only shut up because Dave had lurched forward and pinned him to the ground, yanking up his shirt and exposing the eight slits, four on each side, that had caused him so much pain. Karkat opened his mouth as if in preparation to say something, but Dave just glared at him, and he shut up immediately. This wasn't a moment for talking, this was a moment for _acting_ —and that's exactly what Dave did, reaching down and keeping his eyes locked onto Karkat's as he brushed against the gill slits with gentle adoration. They felt strange—flesh-like, but cool and slippery at the same time—but he didn't let it bother him as he stroked along them in an attempt to reassure his matesprit that it was _okay. He_ was okay.

"D-Dave?" Karkat breathed, eyes wide.

Dave bowed his head and placed a kiss along each slit. He could feel the way Karkat's entire body shuddered at the brush of lips to skin, though, and he knew that this was neither the time nor place to do this. "Karkat?"

"Hmm?" the troll hummed, looking dazed. His fingertips were grasping at nothing, curling and uncurling rhythmically, and his eyes were staring up at something that wasn't there. He looked _shocked,_ as if he'd never imagined that Dave would have a positive reaction to his most hidden mutation.

"Hey, dude, you still with me?" Dave shook him gently by the shoulder. His fingers were still brushing lightly around the eight slits, trying to reassure him even now that he was willing to accept _all_ of him, not just the convenient bits. "You're kinda freaking me out, Karkles—don't tell me you're going to keel over!"

"I'm already lying down," the troll pointed out blearily. "You…you're really not going to just ditch me?"

"Oh my god, you're _not_ this fucking stupid."

Karkat winced. "Sorry! I just…I'm _sorry."_

For a moment, he wanted to be upset. He wanted to be upset, because if he'd known that Karkat could fucking _breathe underwater,_ he wouldn't have worried as much.

Actually…would that really have been the case? Or would he just have worried more, knowing that he was _probably_ alive out there, but they just couldn't seem to find him?

"Dave?" Karkat muttered uncertainly. "You're not upset, are you?"

He hesitated. Looked down at Karkat, sprawled out on his back, shirt pushed to his armpits, watching him with an expression caught between hope and madness. And…Dave thought that there were more important things than what had or hadn't been said in the past. There really, _really_ were.

"No," he decided, and Karkat's entire body melted into a puddle of relief. "I'm not mad. I mean, hey—now there's a whole other part of you I get to explore, right?"

The troll blushed furiously. "Hey, that's not—!"

Dave just laughed, and this time there was nothing stopping him from leaning down and capturing his matesprit's lips in a kiss that was originally intended to be searing, but came off more tear-damp and heartsick-sweet instead.

"I missed you," Dave murmured, barely pulling back enough to admit it before he was pressing in again, brushing his lips lightly to Karkat's nose, his cheeks, his forehead.

Karkat laughed raspingly in response. "Careful there, Strider, you're spilling pale all over the place."

"As if," he snorted, only doubling his efforts to kiss every visible inch of his matesprit. But the mention of _pale_ made him remember that he wasn't the only one missing Karkat. John would be waiting back at camp, and Sollux was still on the mainland. He hadn't even been _told_ about this excursion.

Karkat seemed to pick up on his sudden shift in demeanor. "What's wrong?"

"Well…" He snuggled closer to the troll, mushing his face into his shoulder and finally allowing his shirt to slip back down to cover his gills. "As much as I'd love to hold you here for another few hours, there's someone else who I think will be happy to see you."

His eyes lit up, and he pushed Dave back to stare him in the face. "John? John is here?"

For just a heartbeat, Dave felt that familiar flicker of jealousy. But then he remembered that there was nothing to be jealous _of,_ and his expression lessened in severity as he said, "Yeah, he is. So is Eridan."

"Eridan?" Karkat echoed. "What's fishface doing here?"

"He's the one that figured out where you were. Apparently some scrap of fabric with your symbol on it was just floating down one of the deep ocean currents, and he found it and traced the current all the way back to this island with us in tow."

"Fabric?" the troll repeated. One hand darted to his chest, where his symbol would have been had he been wearing one of his usual t-shirts. "Like from one of my shirts?"

"Yeah," Dave confirmed. "It was so strange, too—Eridan said that it couldn't have been in the water for more than a week or so. Do you know how it could have gotten there?"

That earned him another blush, dark and furious, one hand slipping up to cover his eyes. "Oh, gog…well, this is awkward."

"Awkward, Karkles?"

The blush darkened. "I, ah…gave up."

"Gave up."

"Yeah. Gave right the fuck up, was about to do an acrobatic pirouette right the fuck off the edge of the nearest cliff because I thought I was never going to see any of my friends again. A little over a week ago I was just standing around, thinking about the fact that my quadrants were probably moving on and forgetting all about me, and I just… _snapped._ I started freaking out. I tore my shirt up, shredded the symbol right out of the front and hurled it into the ocean. I was just _so fucking sick_ of being me, being weak and helpless and alone on an island with no way of getting off or finding my quadrants, and I was ready to flip my shit. Most of the things in my sylladex got lost at the bottom of the ocean somehow, but I did have a few spare shirts—most of them with that fucking _symbol_ , but some without—and so I shredded the ones with markings and started wearing the others. I was _done._ But…I guess my act of rebellion just ended up launching my symbol right into Eridan's hands."

"Sick of being you?" Dave whispered. "Oh, Karkat…"

Karkat looked away, no doubt trying to disguise the way his eyes were burning. "Yeah, well…I don't know if you've noticed this, but being me is a bit of a fucking disaster right now."

Dave leaned back and looked, _really looked_ at his matesprit for the first time in six months. Sure enough, _disaster_ didn't even begin to cover it. The guy was fucking _skinny,_ practically skin and bones, and all his visible flesh was covered in scrapes and bruises. He seemed well rested, at least, but there were still shadows under his eyes that spoke of countless nights spent working on _something._ Just what had he been up to these past few months?

Karkat sighed, taking the opportunity to sit up and get his feet under him. "Look, I haven't exactly been living the high life out here. Like I said, most of my shit got washed away in the ocean so when I got here all I could do was set up an alchemiter and do what I could to make sure I didn't just keel over from exhaustion or starvation or a combination of both. I didn't have any food on me, and it's not like I'd memorized the codes for anything edible, so I've had to keep alchemizing a fuckton of barely edible shit that grows on the island. Setting up camp took forever, the stench of rotting flesh was taking up the entire western half of the island, I could barely manage to eat enough of those bitter plant things to survive…it fucking _sucked._ And then I had to deal with slowly losing hope that you were _ever_ going to find me, and that sucked even worse."

"You have gills, so why didn't you just swim for it?"

"Where would I have gone?" Karkat snorted. "Just picked a direction and swam for the hills? What if I was wrong, and I was just swimming out into the open ocean with no hope of ever being found? Everyone knows that rule number one when you're lost is to stay the fuck put and wait to be rescued, and so that was what I did. Never mind that every day tore just a few more chunks right out of my blood pusher and ground them into the dust."

He was right. He was right, and Dave couldn't even imagine what he'd been through. At least where _he'd_ been he'd had John and Kanaya and everyone else to console him and keep him distracted from the fact that he'd lost his matesprit. But Karkat hadn't had any of that. He'd had nothing but Gamzee's rotting corpse and his own thoughts, and he hadn't just lost one quadrant, he'd lost _three._

"Oh, god," Dave breathed, the reality of the situation sinking in. He wanted to comfort the troll further, but there was just so much wrong _,_ and Karkat had been in so much pain for _so long_ , maybe even way before he ever stepped off that cliff, and he didn't know how to handle it. He didn't know how to comfort him, and looking at the way the troll was staring at nothing, eyes focused on something at least five miles off the physical plane, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to do this. At least, not alone.

"Come on," he soothed, reaching out and gently easing Karkat to his feet, getting one arm around his waist and using the other to drape one of the troll's arms around his own shoulders. "I think we should get you to John."

Karkat's eyes sparked with life. He said nothing, just pressed into Dave's side with all the strength he had, but he was obviously thrilled at the thought of seeing his moirail again.

The two of them started walking, and Karkat only stumbled a little.

†††

It didn't take long to get back to where John and Eridan had set up camp. The two of them were parked halfway up the beach, fire flickering between them, both staring silently into the flames.

That wasn't going to last long.

Dave felt Karkat shudder the instant he caught sight of the two figures. The troll was still slightly shaky on his feet from the emotional trauma, still trembling with every step, but when he realized that his moirail was close he started trying to walk faster, which almost ended up with him getting a mouthful of sand as he took Dave down with him.

"Easy," Dave soothed, but obliged him in moving just a little faster. "Almost there, Karkles."

Karkat tugged at his hold. "John," he breathed out.

Dave's heart twinged with understanding. He raised his head and called out, "John! Dude, over here!"

The figures blinked in tandem and looked up. Their faces were still blurred by the firelight at such a distance, but they weren't so far away that they couldn't be told apart. John's god tier pajamas caught the light as he took a few steps forward, then lifted off the ground. "Dave?" he yelled over the sound of the crashing waves.

Dave couldn't hide the smirk that tore itself suddenly across his face as he realized that this was _it._ He'd been just as miserable as John for these past six months, and now they could finally rest easy.

"John!" Dave called again, "Just get out here!" Karkat was trying to say something too, but his eyes were pricking with reddish tears, and his throat seemed to have closed right up. _Emotional dork,_ he thought, conveniently forgetting that he'd started crying when he'd seen Karkat again, too.

"Dude, what's…?" John flew closer, confused. But then he apparently caught wind of the fact that Dave wasn't alone, that he was supporting another person, and his eyes went wide as he picked up speed. "K-Karkat…?"

Karkat tugged just once more, rasping out something low and indistinguishable in the back of his throat, and Dave let him go with a chuckle. He pushed the troll forward just a few steps, just enough to be out of the way when John got there and inevitably tackled him to the ground.

Sure enough, that was exactly what happened.

"Karkat!" John wailed as he finally drew close enough to really _see_ , and suddenly he was tearing down the beach in a blur, and then Karkat and John were on the ground in a medley of limbs.

"Take it easy," Dave teased, but neither of them heard. They were too wrapped up in each other, clawing close and tangling together until it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

John sank the fingers of one hand into Karkat's hair and pulled lightly, keeping his head pressed up under his chin. "Oh my god," he choked out, tears dripping unhindered down his cheeks, _"Karkat."_

Karkat shook visibly as he returned the embrace. "Fuck," he breathed, and it was obvious he was trying to keep from crying again. _"Fuck_ , I thought I'd never see you again."

John let out a weak, choking laugh. "Tell me about it."

Dave smiled, watching the two reunite. They were _really_ fucking cute together, which was a thought he immediately decided to burn and never recognize again. He was _not_ going to sit there and watch John wrap around his moirail, Dave's matesprit, and hold him as if nothing else mattered. It was just plain rude to watch such a personal moment, and—

 _Oh my god_ , they were kissing.

It was only a light, pale press of lips—and immediately Dave understood everything Karkat had ever tried to tell him about moirallegiance, everything that even Kanaya hadn't been able to make him understand. _Oh…it's so different…_

John drew back only to return a moment later, pressing his lips again and again to Karkat's, hands cupping his cheeks. It was a good minute before he finally stopped long enough to press his forehead to his moirail's and whisper, "Are you okay?"

Karkat smiled even as his whole body shook. "Not really, no. But…I think I will be."

This time John's laugh was stronger, happier. "Good…that's good!" He reached down and twined their fingers together. "Oh my god, Karkat, I thought you were _dead."_

Karkat tried to shrug nonchalantly, but it didn't really work when he was still visibly fighting back tears. "And I thought I'd never see you again, but look where we are now. Pretty fucking incredible."

John giggled. Leaned forward. Pressed his lips to Karkat's again. _"Really_ incredible."

There was an indignant snort to their right. "Cod, could you be any more sappy?"

Dave glared over at Eridan, who was standing with his arms crossed not too far off the surf. The tide was rising. "Dude, fuck off."

"Yes," Karkat agreed, "fuck off."

Eridan rolled his eyes. Then he was reaching for something in his sylladex, and one of Jane's window portal things was suddenly in his hand. "If you insist. When you're ready, feel free to use the portal. Everyone will be waitin' for you." He flicked his wrist, then a portal was gaping up out of the ground, presumably connected to one back in the village. Eridan moved towards it, one foot dangling close to the light. But then he paused, throwing a glance over his shoulder at Karkat with an unreadable expression plastered across his face.

Karkat raised a brow. "Ampora?"

Eridan cleared his throat awkwardly. "Kar. Whatever debt you feel you had to me, it's been filled. Same goes for the others. We never blamed you for any of this, anyway."

 _Huh?_ Dave looked from Eridan to Karkat, and was puzzled to see an expression of guilt flash momentarily across his matesprit's face.

"Thanks," Karkat ground out, tightening his grip on John. "That, uh…means a lot."

Eridan shrugged. "Just wanted you to know." Then he was stepping forward and vanishing, carried back to the village in a flash of light.

Dave turned back to his matesprit just in time to see him let go of John and lean back. They were alone now, and Karkat was going to be okay— _so now what?_

John seemed to feel the same weight that was settling across Dave's shoulders. "We're okay," he said as if in a dream. "We're actually okay. No one died."

Karkat snorted. "Well, Makara's looking pretty dead. But I'm sure Jane can get him back on his feet, even six months decomposed."

John wrinkled his nose. "You _want_ him back? Didn't he, like, torment you?"

"So did all the others," the troll pointed out. "They lashed out because their pans were scrambled, and it didn't help that Gamzee was off sopor. Jane can bring him back, and then he should be fine."

"And if he's not? He tried to _mutilate_ you!"

"There are _twenty_ of us," Karkat said. "Ten god tier. If Gamzee came back to life on this deserted island, what's the worse he could do?"

John and Dave exchanged hesitant looks.

"You really sure about that?" Dave questioned. And he really shouldn't have asked that, because it made Karkat look away with that pained expression that just made him want to hold him close until he didn't hurt anymore.

"Yeah," the troll rasped. "I am. I've always blamed myself for what went down with Gamzee, and while Eridan claims the others have forgiven me, there's still one sorry sack of shit that I haven't gotten to apologize to yet."

Dave cocked his head, ready to ask just what had gone down with Gamzee, but John beat him to it. "Okay," he said, and the look on his face let Dave know that it was _serious_. This wasn't something he should argue against. "Jane should be able to bring him back. We can take you back to town and get some real food in you, give you a few days of rest, and then we can deal with this disaster area. Sound good?"

Karkat hummed appreciatively, and all the tension drained out of him. "Sounds great. But…"

"What?" Dave asked gently.

The troll flushed. "Can we, um…?" He glanced towards the portal nervously.

"You want to stay here for a bit?" John guessed.

Karkat nodded appreciatively. "Yeah. Yeah, that's just about right."

Dave raised a brow. "On the beach? Sleeping in the sand?"

"If that's okay with you. I…I don't think I'm ready to face everyone."

In all honestly, he didn't like the idea of waking up with sand all up in his unmentionables. But Karkat was looking at him with soft, sweet eyes, and he was just so _goddamn happy_ to have his matesprit here, breathing, talking, _existing_ at his side, and how could he say no?

"Sure," he said, and John echoed his agreement with all the enthusiasm of a child breaking open a piñata. "We can stay here for as long as you like."

Karkat's expression melted into one of relief. "Good… _good_."

"Should we settle down here?" John suggested.

"Oh, no." Karkat waved a hand towards the forest. "We can head back to where I've been staying. It's a lot more sheltered than hanging around on the beach with Gamzee's rotting corpse less than a mile away."

Well, there was no arguing with that.

Karkat closed the fingers of one hand around Dave's wrist, then reached out to take John's the other. "Come on. I'm too tired to stand around in the middle of a bunch of fucking sand."

 _There's my Karkat._ Dave didn't resist in the least as both him and John were tugged along towards the forest. He didn't blame him for wanting to get away. This had to be a lot, rediscovering two of his three lost quadrants after months of grappling with the impending realization that he was _never going to see them again_. Holing up with those quadrants for a while was probably the only thing that would let him process what had just happened.

John seemed to sense it too. But he did nothing, just let Karkat tug him along towards whatever camp he'd managed to set up for himself, only wincing slightly as the troll's grip became vice-like in his determination to keep his quadrants close.

They moved deeper and deeper into the forest. Just when Dave was about to speak up about how deep they were moving, though, Karkat pulled them through a line of trees and into a clearing.

Dave blinked. "Woah."

Shrugging, Karkat said, "I had a lot of time to set it up."

And he _must_ have, because Dave was looking at an honest to god log cabin. A little flimsier than the ones he'd seen professionally built in magazines and movies, but still, it was a _home_. How many days had Karkat spent on this? He would have been able to alchemize all the necessary supplies, but he would have had to put it together himself.

"Let's go in," Karkat pressed. "I couldn't manage much of an interior, but there's a pretty sizable pile that the three of us can share."

Right now, even that sounded amazing. Hell, Dave though that he would have given Kanaya's pile of wands and designer outfits a go if it meant he could have Karkat there with him. Karkat and John, who was shooting him a meaningful look.

Karkat popped the door to the cabin open. There was no lock, which almost surprised him for a moment before he remembered that there was no one on this island to be suspicious of. He could do whatever he wanted.

"Here we go," Karkat announced, ushering John and Dave into the house. There wasn't much inside, most likely due to the fact that Karkat didn't have the technical smarts to figure out the captchalogue codes for furniture. He had managed the basics, though, and Dave's eyes snagged on a stone fireplace resting beside a massive pile of plain black t-shirts and blankets. A table sat to one side with a sloppily constructed stool propped up underneath it, and a chest with ragged edges was placed against the far wall. That was about the extent of it, though—it was obvious that Karkat hadn't had much to work with when it came to the interior.

Karkat finally released his quadrants and plodded towards the pile. "I'd offer you something to eat, but I don't think you'd enjoy the _delightful_ food I've managed to scrounge up from this miserable place." He reached the pile and started rearranging it, spreading the shirts and blankets around until it was more of a plateau, the fabric distributed evenly with enough room for all three of them to spread out comfortably. Then he looked up and said, "Well…um…"

Dave couldn't hold back a smile. He was so _cute._ How could any one person be this small and feisty and adorable? He was his favorite thing right now, and it was obvious that he had no idea what to do next.

John was shooting him that glance again, that glance that flickered with a hopeful question. _Help me help him?_

Dave just nodded. _You got it, bro._

Then the two of them were moving as one, Dave grasping Karkat's left arm, John his right, and shifting him around to the front of the pile.

"Wait," Karkat yelped, "what are you doing?"

Neither of them responded. John clung to Karkat's side like a koala, humming a little sound of contentment as he started to tug him insistently toward the heap of t-shirts and blankets while Dave repeated the action on his matesprit's other side with only a touch more intensity. Karkat was shaking and uncertain at the first hint of contact, overwhelmed with emotion and blinking back the beginnings relieved tears that appeared suddenly and with good reason.

"Shoosh," John soothed, palms running up and down Karkat's arms as the two humans finally got their mutual quadrant down to his knees, then onto his back. "You're okay, Karkat, we're here."

"Yeah," Dave murmured, "You're safe now, with us." The whole pale thing wasn't really Dave's job, but he thought he could make an exception. He tried to copy John's movements. Then, deciding it wasn't working, he leaned in to kiss Karkat gently on those soft, black lips. And _that_ was familiar territory—the way Karkat hummed against him, fingers clutching at the front of his shirt and trying to pull him even closer, even though the only way to press nearer would be to physically melt into his body.

Karkat drew in a deep, shuddering breath. _"Fuck,"_ he whispered. "Fuck, Dave, John, I…"

Dave drew away from his matesprit's lips and ducked down to his legs, stripping of him of his socks and shoes, then his jeans. Luckily, the troll was wearing boxers, so things didn't get too weird. He decided to leave it at that, knowing that Karkat would probably feel uncomfortable exposing his gills for the whole world to see (or at least, for his moirail to see, who didn't yet know) and instead moved to shuck off his own shoes, then his cape. He'd leave the pajamas. Didn't want to weird John out, now, did he?

"J-John…"

He looked up. Blushed furiously as he realized that John was quite literally kissing Karkat's tears away. "You're okay," he was whispering over and over, like mantra, like a prayer. "You're okay, Karkat, nothing is going to hurt you here. We've got you. Dave and I have you now."

That snapped him out of his surprise. _We have you._ He reached forward with aching fingers to grab onto his matesprit and help sooth him, calm him down and reassure him that everything was okay. He surged forward as John pulled back to take off his shoes and hood, taking his place in cupping Karkat's face and whispering reassurances into his ear, nuzzling close and letting him know that they were _here._

Karkat plastered Dave tight to his right side, melding their forms together until nothing could possibly have hoped to pry them apart. The troll's other arm flailed in the open air for a moirail that was still fighting with his hood, even as he pressed his head up under Dave's chin with a tiny, helpless whine. Dave shushed him the best he could as John finished taking his hood off, and without thinking he raised a hand and rasped his nails lightly across the troll's hornbeds.

It had been the right thing to do. Every bit of tension melted out of the troll in a single heartbeat, and a rusty purr started up in the back of his throat that wasn't quite up to full speed. He nuzzled up into the touch, really starting to purr heavily when Dave started rubbing at the base of his right horn more thoroughly.

There was a rustle from Karkat's other side, and Dave knew the instant John slotted into place because Karkat's purring intensified tenfold, and then Dave's fingers brushed against John's as he went for his moirail's other horn and Karkat trilled out a high-pitched, happy sound.

"That's it," John whispered, and Karkat shifted as he did _something_ , but Dave's eyes had drifted closed so he couldn't see it. Then he felt fingers at the bridge of his nose, grabbing onto his shades, and he realized that John was going for _him,_ sliding his sunglasses right off his face and propping them somewhere off to the side. Dave didn't even consider fighting it for a moment. This was real. This was _personal._ And if he couldn't be like this around his matesprit and around John, then he couldn't be like this around anyone.

Karkat reached up, eyes half closed and bleary, and pressed his warm fingertips to the flesh beneath Dave's eyes. "I like your eyes," he murmured. "They're pretty." He sounded drunk. Probably a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and shock at being back in the arms of his quadrants.

John shushed the troll from his other side. His fingertips were still wrapped lightly around Karkat's horn, spurring on the rusty purring, and his lips pressed to his moirail's neck with the gentlest of pressure. "Just rest for a while, Karkat," he soothed. "We have all the time in the world to talk later, so just rest your eyes."

Karkat opened his mouth, tension pouring back into his body as the rumbling in his chest started to die off. But Dave wasn't going to have any of that; Karkat was supposed to be _calm_ right now, calm and relaxed and purring for his quadrants—and so he reached out and rubbed the base of the troll's horn with firm, even pressure, and _that_ did the trick. Karkat went limp against him, that rasping rumble starting up again, a soft sigh escaping his lips.

John shot Dave a thankful glance. "There we go, Karkat. We're okay."

Karkat's eyes were already slipping closed again. He was clearly exhausted from the tidal wave of emotions overcoming him, exhausted from the realization that everything would be okay.

"Hey," Dave muttered, brushing his fingertips across his matesprit's cheek. "No nightmares tonight, okay?"

Karkat rumbled out a laugh. "No," he agreed sleepily, pressing his head up under Dave's chin. He half turned to the human, the claws of one hand digging into the front of his shirt, and nuzzled in close. His other arm was still free, though, and he groped blindly for John with a low whine.

John chuckled. Then Karkat was being jostled just slightly as John pressed up behind him and threw an arm over his waist, and Karkat's free arm slung back over John at an angle that was no doubt awkward, but he didn't seem to care so long as he could get close to his moirail.

Dave jumped in surprise as he felt blunt fingernails rasping across the fabric over his thigh. But then he glanced over his shoulder and saw John watching him with a grateful look, and he understood. _We've been through so much together…and even though Karkat is here now, even though we have him back, our bond isn't going to break. We're in this for the long haul now._

Without giving it a second thought, Dave reached out and met John's fingertips. John just smiled in response, head lowering to press into the space in between Karkat's shoulder blades, and, mirroring the slow dissipation of Karkat's purring, drifted off to sleep.

Dave was swift to follow.


	27. Karkat: Return to Normalcy

**One more chapter after this!**

 **Chapter 27:** **Karkat: Return to Normalcy**

* * *

Karkat was slow to wake the next morning, basking in the unexplained warmth wrapped around him like a cocoon. For a long while he just laid there, half asleep even as he shifted slightly atop the pile, and tried to piece together why he was feeling the way he was feeling. Just sort of… _warm_. Fuzzy, almost.

Something was different. Normally he'd wake up cold and alone and miserable, staring up at the ceiling of the cabin he'd constructed and wondering what he would do that day. There wasn't much _to_ doon the island, obviously—just sit around and wait for his quadrants to find him. And after six months of nothing, he'd started to believe that it was never going to happen. Today, though…

Today he felt good. Today he felt warm and loved, and he couldn't remember why until he felt the loose curl of fingers against his left horn, and a startled rumble started and died in his chest. Those fingers twitched, brushing the sensitive base, and then someone was curling around his back and puffing hot breath against his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. He pressed back into the warmth, momentarily confused—but then something shifted at his front, a pair of lips tilting to press against the underside of his jaw, and he remembered.

Oh, fuck—he _remembered._

His eyes snapped open at the speed of light, and he had to fight himself not to snap up and awaken his dozing quadrants. Dave's face, calm and relaxed, was the first thing he saw, which meant that John was the one curled lightly around his back. _My matesprit. My moirail. My quadrants._

John muttered something, stirred up briefly by the automatic tensing of Karkat's muscles upon awakening, but fell back asleep with a contented sigh when Karkat brushed a few fingers along his palm. At his front, Dave hummed once and was still.

This was perfect. After having nothing but Gamzee's rotting corpse to keep him company for six months, this was exactly what he'd needed. He'd missed his quadrants so desperately that he'd thought his blood pusher was about to rip itself to shreds in his chest, and so having them both pressed to him now was a blessing from a higher being he didn't quite believe in.

Perfect. Everything was perfect.

That is, it _was,_ until Karkat heard someone rustling near the table and realized that they weren't alone. Someone else was here. Someone was here, and it took every scrap of self control he had not to blow things out of proportion and go lunging, claws extended, for whoever was lounging at his table.

"Finally awake, KK?"

Just like that, the tension right back out of him. His last quadrant had returned to him.

"I know you're awake, you prithy little bitch. Anthwer me!"

He laughed, then, low and rumbling, and he couldn't even begin to think of stopping it. "Long time no see, _Thollukth."_

Sollux glared. Glared with his single working eye, fangs sticking awkwardly out of his mouth as they always had, expression twisted into a mixture of hatred and relief. "You inthufferable shitface, I can't _believe_ you've been alive all thith time and nobody knew! And I don't even get to find out from you, _oh no—_ you get to thend fucking _ED_ of all people back through that portal to charge through town and let all of uth know that you're thtill kicking, but choosing to thtay behind on a detherted ithland inthtead of coming to tell your kithmethith in perthon!"

Karkat winced. Looking back on it, that was probably the stupidest thing imaginable. But he'd been such a mess, and John and Dave had just been _there,_ and he'd been so tired and desperate and grief-worn that he'd just melted into their embrace and paid no mind to the fact that there was one quadrant he was leaving out.

"Well?" Sollux snarled. "Anything to thay for yourthelf, KK?"

Another wince. Slowly, painfully, he disentangled himself from his other two quadrants. He half expected them to wake up when he did, but they just latched onto each other in a maneuver that looked oddly practiced and went right back to sleep.

Then there was nothing between him and his kismesis, and it dawned on Karkat that if Sollux wanted, he could tear him apart right now and he couldn't lift a finger to stop him. He was weak from this whole disaster, weak emotionally, weak physically, and he wasn't much of a match for _anyone_ right now. Even Tavros could probably push him over with his little finger without even noticing he'd done it. Brush into him once, and _wham—_ flat on his back.

Either Sollux didn't recognize that he was too battered to act like a proper kismesis, or he didn't care—but either way he started stalking closer, prowling towards him like a wild animal with bursts of psionics crackling in between his horns. "You had your loving reunion with your red and pale quadrantth, tho what are you planning on doing for me?"

Karkat couldn't fight back the flicker of fear that flashed through him at the sound of those words. No, _no—_ he couldn't fight back right now; he was in no shape to have a proper black encounter! He shrank back without thinking, instinctively trying to make himself as small as possible.

Sollux froze in his tracks. "KK?"

Oh, _shit._ Looking weak in front of your kismesis was a one way trip off the edge of a fucking cliff, and he wasn't in the mood to try _that_ for a second time. He immediately forced himself to straighten up, but the damage had been done. And Sollux…

Sollux was just staring at him in shock, jaw slack, single eye blown wide. "Fuck, KK, you're not okay."

And _that_ was what made Sollux his kismesis, wasn't it? The only person he could possibly hate more than himself was an asshole, but he cared enough to put the instinct to dominate aside when it was obvious Karkat wasn't up to bickering.

There were arms around him, then. Sollux was hugging him, and Karkat tasted red on the tip of his tongue.

"Oh man," Sollux said, "you're really fucked up right now, aren't you?"

His throat closed in on itself momentarily, then cleared. "Better than I was," Karkat muttered. "John and Dave helped."

"Fuck…what methed you up tho bad?"

"What do you fucking think?" Karkat snorted. "I've been alone for six months, watching Gamzee's body decay as I struggled to stay alive, slowly giving up on seeing _any_ of my quadrants ever again. And then suddenly John and Dave show up out of nowhere as if nothing ever changed, and they _wreck_ me. They completely fucking wreck me because I'd finally gotten to the point where I thought I was ready to give up and try to move on, I'd finally gotten to the point where I could tear the Cancer symbol right out of my shirt and hurl it into the ocean, and then they were just _there._ And now I'm going to be expected to go back to the village and figure out how to live again, and I don't know how to _do_ that. A whole fucking civilization was built in my absence, with all of our dead friends just working their way into the order of things without a hitch, and I'm not even sure what I'm going back to."

Sollux was silent, but he still wasn't releasing the hold he had on him. "Thounds like thomething to go to your moirail with."

"My moirail doesn't know the deceased trolls like you do. So Sollux…is it as bad as it was before?"

A pause. "No, KK. It'th not anywhere near as bad ath it wath. Everyone is really fucking happy, actually. TZ is thtill pale for VK, as ekthpected, I'm thtill with AA, John went black for TZ—and _thith_ ith a good one—Dave thtarted a moirallegiance with KN!"

Karkat's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "Seriously? He embraced the quadrant system?"

"Well, I'm not sure if _he_ knowth she's hith moirail. But between you and me, I'm pretty sure he wath thlinging thpadeth at ED for a while before fishface got involved with EQ."

Karkat nearly gagged. "Figures that one creep would attract another."

"Eheheh…you've got 'em there, KK. But theriouthly, thingth haven't really changed that much. NP and EQ are still pale for each other, ED ith thtill an athhole, FF is still going red with me, KN ith thtill running around trying to be everyone'th authpithtithe…everything ith pretty much the same."

Karkat sneered, but relief was bubbling in the pit of his stomach. "Why don't you try knocking all your teeth out before you say that again, you lispy bastard? You're barely understandable."

Sollux's claws dug into his shoulders, lips curving upwards into a grin. "There'th my KK."

He blinked. Then he smirked, realizing that _yes,_ he was already feeling a little better.

"Trutht me," Sollux said, "you're going to fit right back in. Everyone mitheth you, and John and Dave have been taking good care of your stuff. And if anyone lookth at you thidewayth while you're recovering from all this shit, then I'll bash them over their fucking headth."

Karkat laughed. _Really_ laughed for the first time in months, and it felt amazing. "Real reassuring, fuckass, but I'm pretty sure Eridan could put you on the ground in about one second with one of your eyes still out."

Sollux rolled said eye with a half-amused huff. "You're lucky you're thtill fucked in the head, otherwithe I'd beat the shit out of you here and now."

He cringed, thinking, _fucked in the head. It's less true than it used to be, but after spending six months on my own, I can't deny that my think pan is more twisted than I'd like it to be._

"Hey," Sollux said, seeming to catch Karkat's sudden turn in demeanor. "You're going to be fine, fuckface. Sure you went through thome real methed up thtuff, but you've got your quadrantth with you now. We'll make sure nothing happenth to you; get your pan thcrewed back on thtraight. Tho you can chill."

Karkat let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, muttering, "Yeah, you're right. Fuck…I'm just being an idiot. Just overthinking things."

"You _are_ the mathter at overthinking thingth."

"Oh, fuck of, Captor!"

Sollux laughed. "There'll be plenty of time for that later. For now, why don't you tell me when you're planning on getting the fuck back to the mainland?"

Karkat blanched, voice leaving him in a whoosh of breath as he lost the ability to speak. He knew he would have to go back to his hive soon, probably a few hours after John and Dave got up, but he really didn't want to think about it yet. He didn't want to think about having to fit back in with everyone, even if Sollux had convinced him that it wasn't going to be a living hell like he'd feared. Going back meant feeling things, feeling more things than he was already feeling, and he wasn't sure if he could handle it.

"Oh man," Sollux sighed. "Oh man, are you going to cry again?"

"No, idiot!" he bit out furiously. "I'm fucking fine!"

"Like hell you are," was the scathing response. "Look, KK…I know thith ith going to be hard for you, but you really just need to go back to the mainland. Fathe your shit head on like a goddamn adult, and thtart working through it. Your quadrantth are here for you."

He bared his teeth, fully ready to tear Sollux's throat out—but then he saw the way his kismesis was watching him, gaze a mixture of concern and irritation, and he knew that he was right. Even if it hurt, he had to go back to his hive and start to work his way back into normal life. The longer he waited, the worse it would be.

"I'm not one for the whole comfort thing," Sollux went on, "but if you ever need to beat the shit out of thomeone, you're more than welcome to try it with me and thee how far it getth you."

 _"That's_ reassuring," Karkat snorted, and it really was. "I'm sure that—"

Something rustled behind him, and his words died in his throat. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, he saw John starting to stir slightly. He was waking up, which meant that Dave wouldn't be far behind.

Sollux saw it too. He stepped back and said, "Well, it lookth like that'th my cue. Come back soon, KK."

Then he was gone, John and Dave were sitting up and wiping sleep from their eyes.

"Karkat?" John murmured sleepily. "Karkat, where…?"

"Don't panic, you moron," the troll snapped as he peered towards the place Sollux had vanished. "Everything is fine."

"Oh…" was the answering sigh. "Why are you all the way over there?"

Karkat let out a puff of half-amused, half-irritated breath as he stomped his way back over to the pile and threw himself in between his moirail and his matesprit. There were sleepy hands all over him in an instant, making sure he was real, he was still there, he was alive. "Just…taking care of some unfinished business," he muttered, leaning into John's palm as it brushed across his cheek.

Dave mumbled from his other side, "Dude, shut up. You two are loud; I'm trying to sleep."

John flailed at him, catching Karkat in the crossfire and nearly clobbering his poor moirail in the cheek as he went to bat Dave on the shoulder.

"Fuck!" Karkat hissed as John's nails dragged across his cheek. There wasn't really any pressure behind it, but it _stung,_ damn it! "Okay, you two, get the fuck up right now! I'm not letting you tear my face off because of your pointless bickering!" He batted Dave in the face, then John, waking the two of them up fully.

"Oww…" Dave complained. He reached to his side and grabbed his shades, shoving them back onto his face. "Dude, seriously?"

"Chin up, Strider," Karkat growled. "We have shit to do today, and things we need to discuss."

"Like what?" Dave pushed his hair out of his eyes as he spoke. It was messier than it normally was, mussed with sleep, and he blew a puff of air up at his bangs as they fell stubbornly back into place.

"Like going back to the mainland, fuckass."

He paused. "You think you're ready for that, Karkles?"

 _No._ "It doesn't matter if I'm ready or not. I've been out here for six months, and I have to—hey!"

Dave batted him upside the head with a huff. "Idiot. If you're not ready to go back, then we won't go back."

"Yeah," John chimed in with a yawn. "I mean, going back _soon_ would be good, but if you need a few days…"

Karkat bared his teeth in a halfhearted sneer. "Are you fucking kidding me? You have other quadrants now, you can't just drop everything for me!"

Dave shrugged. "Kanaya will understand."

"Oh, and I'm pretty sure Terezi's supposed to be going off on a trip with Vriska for a few days!" John agreed with a goofy smile that was so distinctively _John_ that it made Karkat's blood pusher jump in his chest. "She won't mind."

Karkat just stared at his two idiot quadrants, mouth opening and closing in a choppy rhythm. "But—but—!"

"Dude, chill." Dave reached out to ruffle his hair, narrowly avoiding his horns. "You've been stranded in this place for months. If you need some time, you've got it. We'll stay with you."

His mind reeled. In truth, he desperately wanted to stay away for at least a day or two more, just to get used to having his matesprit and his moirail with him once again. Just to force himself to realize that he really _could_ go home. But if John and Dave had quadrants other than him, he couldn't possibly ask them to stay. Quickly, he reached for some other excuse. "The food in this place sucks," he blurted out, then blushed as he realized that he sounded like a freshly-hatched wiggler.

"Seriously?" Dave chuckled. "We've got food, Karkles. And if you want something else, one of us can just hop through the portal and grab it from home. Not like traveling back and forth takes long with Jane's portals."

Again, he scrambled for an excuse. But there was nothing, and so he just gaped at his quadrants helplessly. He wanted to stay.

Dave's expression softened. "Oh, come here, you big baby." And then he was stretching out his arms, and John was pushing at his back, and Karkat was being shoved into the arms of his matesprit with a puff of surprised breath. "John and I have been looking for you forever. Now that we've found you, staying on an otherwise deserted island for a few days doesn't seem like much to sacrifice. So, Karkles— _chill."_

"Chill?" he echoed miserably, voice muffled in Dave's shirt. "While you abandon your other quadrants to stay here?" _While_ I _abandon_ my _other quadrant to stay here?_

"We're not abandoning them!" John chimed in. "It'll just be for a few days, Karkat, and then we can go home! Our friends can manage without us until then." There were fingers in his hair, tugging gently and brushing against the base of his right horn. "We'll be fine."

"Will we?" Karkat muttered.

Dave's grip on him tightened. _"Yes,"_ he said. "We will."

†††

They were.

Three days later, Karkat Vantas stepped off the island that had been his home for six months, John and Dave at his side, and opened his eyes to the sight of a world transformed.

People were waiting for them. Dave had shot a pesterchum message to the rest of the gang to let everyone know that they were coming home, and while not everyone had shown up (most likely in an attempt to keep Karkat from being startled right out of his skin), there were still several trolls and humans waiting for them.

"Welcome home, bulgemuch," was the first thing Karkat heard. "Good to thee that you didn't wither away on that gogdamn island."

Karkat took one look at his kismesis, standing in front of him with squared shoulders and hands poised on his hips, and sneered. "I'm sure you were _so_ worried about me, nookwhiff."

Sollux opened his mouth, fangs sticking out unevenly, but Kanaya brushed him out of the way calmly. "Karkat," she greeted, "I'm glad you're well."

"Yeah, well I still feel like shit," he muttered.

Kanaya quirked a smile, then turned her gaze on Dave. "Welcome home."

"Good to be back." Dave stepped forward, meeting his friend halfway for a brief hug, and Karkat found himself wondering at the oddness of the pair. Kanaya would be good for him, though—calm and collected to Dave's fire and determination.

There was movement to his right, and Karkat glanced over to see Terezi knocking her fist into John's. "I see you're still kicking," she snipped with a toothy smirk. "I half thought the tide would wash you into the ocean, and Eridan would have to drag your cold, soppy body ashore for a corpse party."

"You _wish_ it was that easy to kill me," John shot back with an answering grin. "Unless getting washed out to sea is considered heroic, I'll just keep coming back to torment you again and again."

Karkat rolled his eyes. They were so _transparent._

"I smelled that, Vantas!" Terezi called his way. "Don't think I've forgotten about that debt you owe me!"

He snorted. "What, the debt of pulling me out of a coma? Are we _really_ going to split hairs over that fucking disaster? I think _not."_

Terezi cackled. "Oh no, you _owe_ me. Don't pretend you don't!"

Karkat growled, but the next thing he knew Rose was stepping between them, an exasperated expression on her face.

"Let's _not_ tear each other apart," Rose suggested. "At least, not until we're done getting everyone settled back in." She turned to Karkat. "It's good to see you again. I admit, I thought that there was no hope of recovering even your body."

Delightful as always. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Lalonde."

"Of course." She turned her gaze on John and Dave. "Are you satisfied?"

Dave bristled. "That's one word for it. Another word is fucking _happy,_ just to have Karkat back when we thought we'd never see him again."

Rose dipped her head. "As I suspected. Now, will you be returning home? What will you do about your living arrangement?"

Karkat hesitated, but Dave didn't pause for even a moment. "Easy—we're all living together for the time being. We'll stay that way for as long as it takes."

"Good call," Sollux said, punching Karkat lightly on the shoulder. "And I'm living right next to you now, tho don't hethitate to come find me."

Karkat nodded as if in a dream. This was _happening._ This was _real._

Dave threaded an arm through his, and a moment later John was mirroring the action on the other side. "Come on," his matesprit said, "are you ready to go home?"

He was. He _really_ was. All he wanted was to go back to his hive and rest for a week, ignore the outside world and try to get his pan on straight, and Dave and John could help him do just that.

Dave took his silence as agreement, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Let's go, Karkles."

Then they were off, John and Dave hauling him towards his old hive, and for the first time in months he began to feel safe.

†††

Time passed slowly for Karkat after that. Slowly, and with a haze of relief and happiness.

The day he'd returned to his hive had been glorious. John and Dave had stepped back to let him crash his way into his respiteblock, recuperacoon awaiting on one side, sleep slat on the other, and he'd taken one look at the setup before thinking that he wanted to lock himself in there for hours and talk to no one. He'd turned to John and Dave guiltily, not quite sure how to explain the concept of waiting to be alone after just getting them back, but they'd understood.

"It's okay," Dave had said, brushing fingertips along his cheek. "Hang out in here for as long as you want, then call us when you want company. We're here for you."

And then they'd left, John pecking him on the cheek as an afterthought, and Karkat had been alone.

After that, there had been messages. Messages upon messages, sent to all of his friends and fellow trolls, asking for forgiveness, making sure they were okay, inquiring as to their current state of being. He half expected to be met with irritation after vanishing for so long, but it was quite the contrary. Nepeta squealed so hard when she saw his first message that he could practically hear it from the other side of the mainland, and when he shot Dirk a message he was met with a gruff but affectionate declaration of relief that he hadn't died out in the ocean. Feferi had chirped something about using swimming techniques to regain the muscle mass he'd lost while on a diet of nasty plants native to the island, and Tavros had cheerfully told him that if he needed a calm place to think, he could ask all the lusus creatures to leave the cliffside for a while so he could have some peace and quiet. Aradia and Equius had messaged him once just to say they were glad he was alive, and even _Vriska_ had thrown in the offer of throttling Gamzee herself once Jane brought him back to life.

And Jane _was_ bringing him back to life.

That was something that had been decided without hesitation. Karkat had asked for it, and after a few minutes of discussion, it had been decided that all ten people who had achieved god tier would gather on the island for Gamzee's revival, just in case he turned violent. The portal back to the village would be disabled so there was no chance of an attack, even though Karkat suspected that such a precaution wouldn't be necessary. He'd told Dave to bring a sopor pie to the encounter, and that once Gamzee was conscious he would no doubt go for it and placate himself without thinking about it. After that, so long as he was supplied with the pies he enjoyed so much and a healthy (or unhealthy, as it was) amount of faygo, he would be fine. No, he'd be _more_ than fine. He'd be _happy._

But that wasn't going to happen for a few weeks. Jane had decided that Gamzee could wait that long, and if he couldn't then _oh-fucking-well,_ because Karkat could _not_ handle that just yet. He couldn't handle his quadrants leaving him.

And so for the next few weeks, the three of them stayed a maximum of ten feet from each other at all times. It was nice, Karkat thought. He knew it was weird, sleeping in the same bed as both his matesprit and his moirail, but he didn't think anyone minded. Right now, he needed the contact—and they seemed more than happy to oblige him. Every day was spent with either John or Dave wrapped around him, and it was just enough to start to help him recover.

He was still shaky. He still flinched away when he heard loud noises, remembering his time as Gamzee's plaything, and nightmares still teased at the edges of his think pan in the dead of night. But they were never as bad as they'd been, and he was unwilling to give up his situation with John and Dave to see if sopor slime would push the last of it from his consciousness. He just opted to wait it out, and with every passing day the nightmares faded more and more until they were nearly nothing. He was happy, now, he thought. This was what happiness was supposed to feel like.

Around one week into the beginning of his recovery, he decided it was time to start _really_ working towards being himself again. It had started with dragging John into a feelings jam in the dead of night, Dave muttering after them in sleepy irritation as they stumbled out of bed and down to the pile in the living room.

During that jam, Karkat had told John everything. He'd told him about every horrible, self-deprecating thought that had passed through his pan during those six months. He told him how he'd seriously considered _eating_ Gamzee at one point, when he was struggling to cope with finding food for himself, and how the mere thought of it had made him sick for days. He told him about the slow, steady way hope had drained from him, his usual routine of watching the horizon for his friends slowly slipping away into days spent staring blankly at a wall. He told him about how he would spent dozens of day-night cycles standing at the top of one of the many ridges jutting out of the island and hanging over the water, contemplating taking _another_ plunge right off the edge of a cliff in an attempt to end his own life. He told him about how that one contemplation had led to weeks of pondering all the _other_ ways he might go about committing suicide, freeing himself from the prison he'd caught himself in.

And then, blood pusher aching as John held him close and got his gross human tears all in his hair, he told him about his gills. He pulled up his shirt and let his moirail trace along them with his fingertips, sighing at the pleasant buzz that shot through them, and asked him in a choking tone not to leave because of it.

"Are you kidding?" John had whispered, sliding down the length of his body to leave butterfly kisses along each of the eight slits. "These things saved your life, Karkat—how could I do anything but revere them?"

And when he put it like that, what could he do but agree?

The two of them spent the rest of the night twisted up in the pile, John's sobbing slowly fading to hitching breaths, then ragged sighs as he drifted off, Karkat's shirt still pushed up between them, warm palms spread across his sides. Dave found them like that the next morning, peering at them over his shades and making some horrible, perverse joke that nearly had Karkat gagging.

Karkat had been sure to make him pay for that later.

Soon after that, he was moving on to the next stage—working things out with Dave. Things were _already_ pretty worked out with him, but Karkat had dragged his matesprit over to the pile one night just to make sure things were straight between them, and then he'd realized something.

Dave was just as messed up as he was.

Karkat had gone to him with the intent of a light, happy conversation, and had come away with haunting scars he didn't think he'd ever get rid of. Dave had told him _everything,_ things he probably should have saved only for his moirail, but he was new at the whole quadrants thing so it could be excused. Dave had told him more than he ever wanted to know—namely the fact that he'd fought the battle _twice._

There had been another timeline. A doomed timeline, in a manner of speaking, in which everyone had died. Sollux had been blasted into the ground by Eridan. John had been crushed by Gamzee. Karkat himself had been _pulverized_ until there was nothing left. Gamzee had dug his teeth into his neck and just _pulled._

Dave told him then, in no uncertain terms, that whenever he looked at Karkat all he saw was red. Red, fountaining down his neck and soaking his chest, carrying him on scarlet wings to whatever laid beyond their current plane of existence. He'd admitted to having nightmares, too—nightmares soaked in saccharine, candy red that he couldn't get away from. At least he wasn't the _only_ one that knew. Dave had admitted the truth to everyone after the battle despite his initial desire to keep it a secret, letting them know that even though they'd lost their memories it had _happened,_ and only Aradia and he bore the horrible knowledge of the past.

Still, he wasn't okay. And while Kanaya was trying to work him through it, Karkat had his own portion of the burden to bear as well. And he bore it, somewhat painfully, mostly in the stiff curve of his back and the rigid set of his shoulders. His nightmares got worse for a while after that, images of Gamzee's teeth in his throat haunting him, but it started to fade when Dave began to get better.

Things really started to get better after that.

Karkat started leaving his hive more. He met up with Sollux a few times, hashed out some of the issues in their kismesissitude, and even managed to hold his own in a bicker-fest that had eventually led them into Sollux's respiteblock, then to a pailing platform that Karkat couldn't even _imagine_ how he'd managed to replicate. He'd probably spent hours tweaking the code until it was just right, the pervy bastard.

Soon after that, Karkat went to hang out with Tavros. Then he spent an evening with Nepeta and Equius, and it was only slightly awkward so he tried it again, with John tagging on for a flat out double pale-date. Feferi had invited him out to the ocean, Sollux coming along just to throw pebbles at him and sneer about how useless he was as a swimmer and Eridan glaring at them from a safe distance.

Then Karkat had pulled his shirt off and dove into the water, the salty liquid filtering through his gills and filling him with tangy oxygen, and everyone had promptly shut the fuck up.

"Gills, KK?" Sollux had drawled, and that glare let him know that his kismesis was just _dreaming_ of all the ways he could use this new information to torment him.

"Oh, how exciting!" Feferi chirped, and a cool set of fingers on his back and a low growl behind him let him know that Eridan was there, drawn by the promise of something _new,_ something _interesting,_ and he was practically feeling him up in an attempt to understand.

There may or may not have been a scuffle after that, Sollux nearly blowing Eridan's head off. It was all off the record, though, so who knew?

Word traveled fast after that, and soon _everyone_ knew he was a freak. But no one seemed to care. Feferi just invited him out swimming more, strengthening the rarely used muscles involved in propelling himself through the water, and Dirk even fashioned him gloves with webbing to help make his way through the sea.

His life was good, for a change. The town continued to expand, the villagers thriving and the humans and trolls supporting them every step of the way

Finally, he thought that he was okay. He went out during the day, saw his friends, had normal conversation and did normal things, and then he returned home at night and curled himself around his matesprit and his moirail. It was heaven. He was _happy._ He was okay.

Which meant, after all this time, that it was time to revive Gamzee.

It happened so quickly that he barely had time to worry. One day it was decided that it was time, a date had been set, and everyone had prepared to fight. That night Karkat had latched onto his quadrants like a leech and refused to let them go. Then, the night before they were supposed to go, he'd very adamantly shoved one of his spare t-shirts at John, then at Dave. The two had just blinked in confusion at first. Then, realizing what he wanted, they'd shared equal glances of excitement and tore down the stairs to the alchemiter.

Karkat had been confused for a moment. He'd been expecting them to _wear_ the shirts, so that Gamzee would see that they were _his_ once he woke up. But that wasn't what happened. Instead, he'd listened intently as a series of crashes, bangs, and loud curses came from the lower level of the house.

Still, he was confused—confused until John and Dave returned from the alchemiter, shirts gone, but two things very much different.

Dave turned his head to the side, and Karkat's stomach lurched as he saw the tiny cancer symbol etched into the side of his shades, outlined in vibrant scarlet. Then John bounced into his field of vision, and he turned his head and sucked in a sharp breath when he saw that he'd done the same thing but on the opposite side, and _his_ version of Karkat's symbol was outlined in pale pink.

Gog, he was involved with two of the most ridiculous people _in the world._

…And he loved the shit out of them.

They'd spent the rest of the night awake, sitting close and murmuring promises about the future. And when morning finally came, and John and Dave vanished to make sure everything went well with Gamzee, Karkat did nothing but stare after them nervously.

After that, he'd had only a few hours to wait. He was at the lab when the portal flared back to life and everyone emerged one by one. Rose went first, followed by Dirk and Jake, then Vriska and Aradia, then Jake and Jade, and then finally, _finally,_ John and Dave.

"Good news, Karkles," Dave had greeted him with a smirk.

 _Good news?_

Then Jane was appearing, a very familiar troll at her side, and relief washed over him. It was _Gamzee._ It was Gamzee, standing there with a dopey grin on his face, a hint of green crusted at the edges of his mouth, and he lumbered right up to him as if nothing had changed.

"What is _up,_ best friend?" he lilted, and even his clown makeup was restored. "I've been hearing that I've all up and done some _pretty_ motherfucking terrible things around here lately. That true?"

Karkat had nodded, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter because Gamzee was back, happy and well-placated and ready to fit right back into their dysfunctional family unit, and he dragged his former moirail into a hug before he knew what he was doing. Seeing him was bringing back none of the nightmares he had feared. Rather, it was bringing him the greatest sense of comfort, the last flickers of his guilt fading away as he faced the last person he hadn't gotten to apologize to.

"Woah there," Gamzee chuckled, "no need to go and cry on me, best friend." Then he flicked a glance at John and said, "That your new palebro?"

Again, he'd nodded.

"Huh." Gamzee watched John with a scrutinizing look. But then he smiled, relaxed and content, and Karkat knew that everything was going to be okay. "Well, take _good_ motherfucking care of my best friend, okay?"

John returned his grin. "You've got it! He's in good hands."

He really, _really_ was. And Gamzee knew it.

"Well," the indigo blood said with a sigh, "looks like it's time for me to be gettin' my motherfucking _live_ on. Is there an ocean up around here?"

"I'll, lead you there!" Tavros piped up eagerly, and the smile Gamzee offered him in response was blinding.

"That sounds like the _best_ motherfucking idea anyone's ever wrapped their pan around." Gamzee reached out, Tavros reached out, and then the two were off.

Everything was normal.

Everything as it should be.

They were all okay.


	28. Everyone: Live Happily Ever After

**This is it! I hope you've enjoyed the story. I'll be posting more on my AO3 account (which you can find mentioned in the first author's note of this story), so check it out starting the first Saturday in January if you're interested in more of my stuff.**

 **(Also there's not actually any sexual content in this chapter, despite how suggestive the dialogue gets near the end. Just a warning for people sensitive to that stuff.)**

 **Chapter 28:** **Everyone: Live Happily Ever After**

* * *

"John, we're going to be late! Hurry the fuck up!"

There was the sound of rustling, then John was complaining, "Just give me a minute, Karkat! There are so many _buttons!"_

Karkat growled low in his throat, fidgeting in the tuxedo Kanaya had made just for him, all swooping lines and red swirls and elegant curves. His tie was offensively scarlet as his blood, tiny cancer symbols picked out in beautiful black thread, all of which would have made him fall over into a panicked fit as little as two sweeps ago—but now _all_ his secrets were out, and he couldn't care less. The hemospectrum was dead and gone now, and there was no reason to kill each other over something so silly as blood color.

"Karkat!" John wailed suddenly from behind the curtain, "help!"

Oh gog, his moirail was useless. He shot an exasperated look over to Kanaya, who had invited the two of them over to her workshop to help them get dressed for the monumental event that was going to take place today, but she just hid a smile and waved him toward the enclosed area where John was flailing.

"Kaaaaaaaarkat!"

He curled his lip. "You've been spending too much time around Serket." But still he stalked over and threw the curtain open, reveling in John's startled yelp, and quickly closed it again. "Oh, sweet troll jegus," he sighed, taking in the situation. "You're impossible."

John just whimpered. The poor guy had somehow managed to get himself tangled up in his suit jacket, arms twisted every which way, and one of his feet was missing a sock inside its shoe.

"Come here," Karkat ordered. Then, seeing John make no effort to move, he marched over to his ailing moirail and reached up to help untangle him from the beautiful piece of art Kanaya had designed for him. When the suit jacket finally came free, Karkat checked it over for wrinkles (there were only a few, it would be fine), brushed it off, and helped John put it on the _right_ way. "You know, trolls don't even _have_ tuxedos, why am _I_ the one teaching _you_ how to get dressed?"

"I don't know," John whined, blinking down at Karkat with wide, blue eyes. He still had those same glasses with the Cancer symbol engraved in the side, the ones he'd designed two sweeps ago, and the tiny pink symbol caught the light as he moved his head. There was a new addition, now—a black Libra symbol outlined in teal so it stood out against the dark color of his frames. Similarly, Dave had etched a pink Virgo symbol onto the other side of his glasses, soon followed by (and everyone was only remotely shocked by this), a black Capricorn symbol outlined in a striking indigo. His shades were starting to look ridiculous, truth be told, but Karkat wouldn't dream of asking him to change them. He'd worn them every moment of his life and he would wear them today, no matter how much he protested.

Karkat finished buttoning up John's jacket with a huff. Kanaya had designed him a suit themed around the color blue, the slimming black material hugged by a deep midnight trim and reaching up to enclose a sky-blue collared shirt, a black tie patterned with John's signature symbol hanging lightly down his chest to disappear beneath the buttoned front of his suit jacket. It was beautiful.

"Hold still," Karkat instructed, leaning down and pulling John's sock-less foot out of his shoe. "How did you even _manage_ this? Jegus fuck, you're hopeless." He pulled John's other sock on for him (which had somehow ended up slung halfway across the dressing room) and slotted his foot back into place, thankful that his dress shoes didn't have laces. He hated laces. "There, you're dressed. Now _don't_ ruin it."

John grinned down at him. "Thanks, Karkat!" He pushed his glasses further up on his nose. "Um, we should probably leave, right?"

 _"Yes_ we should leave," he snapped. "We're going to be late as it is, now let's go!"

John just giggled, letting his moirail take hold of his wrist and drag him out of the dressing room.

Kanaya paused as they emerged, glancing over at them. "Both of you look quite nice," she commented. "Dave will be pleased, I think."

"And will _I_ be pleased?" Karkat demanded. He hadn't yet seen Dave's outfit as per some ridiculous human tradition he couldn't care less about.

Kanaya's lips twitched. "You'll certainly be surprised."

Karkat narrowed his eyes. "If my matesprit shows up in a dress, I'm putting my claws through your precious sewing machines, one by one, until there's not enough build grist left over to produce so much as a needle."

She laughed, "No, no—I promise, I didn't make a dress!"

"Good," Karkat growled. "Now let's go!"

Kanaya gestured to the door. "By all means, let us depart. But remember, _no_ teleporters today! You're supposed to _walk_ down the aisle, not fly, not teleport—and you can't _dive roll,_ John!"

John's eyes widened innocently. "I just wanted to see how it would feel! It was just practice!"

"And if you decide to try it again today, I'll _practice_ shoving my sickles right up your waste chute!" Karkat hissed. "Behave!"

"Aww, okay," John pouted, but he didn't look very put out. "Come on, Karkat, Dave will be waiting!"

Then the two of them were tearing outside, Kanaya following them at a more reasonable pace, and heading towards the place that had been designated for today's event. When Rose and Kanaya had done it, they'd used the center of town. Dave and Karkat had considered it for all of two seconds before they'd decided that there was a _much_ better place awaiting them, and with that they had announced that when this disaster of an idea went down, it would happen along the cliffs where Karkat had plunged to his apparent death.

"Just a little piece of history come to life," Dave had teased, and Karkat had decked him right upside the head for joking about it.

The two of them headed through a much-changed town on their way to the clifftop. In the two sweeps since Gamzee had been revived and everyone had begun to build their lives together, everything had changed, and nothing had changed. The village had expanded massively, with multiple story buildings rising up off the ground and stretching high into the sky and shopping complexes popping up out of nowhere. They didn't really have an _economy,_ per say—rather, they had enough build grist left over to make anything they ever wanted, so no one had to pay, and what they didn't want to use grist on they simply made themselves out of raw materials or grew from the fields to the west.

As the village expanded, some of the dersites and prospitarians had started to go off in other directions and start their own settlements, and before long there were _dozens_ of villages in their new world. And as those settlements popped up, their clump of twenty-one friends began to go off one by one and choose where they wanted to spend their days.

Jake and Dirk had been among the first to depart, declaring that their taste for adventure hadn't left them, and that they wanted to see what rested just beyond the horizon. Eventually they sent word back that they'd found a beautiful place to the west where some townsfolk had decided to make their own village, and they wanted to stay there. It was a small place, but close to endless stretches of mountains and places to explore, and they loved it. Not long after that, Nepeta had gone out to see it and declared that she loved the surrounding forest—and as a result, Equius was there not long after that.

Terezi and Vriska had been next. They'd moved not too far away, mostly out of consideration for their quadrants, but had decided to set up shop out in the desert several miles off the main town. Tavros had chosen to live not too far away. Only a short jump by teleporter would take him to the oceanside where Gamzee had made his hive, and only a hop away from that found Eridan's palace.

Feferi chose to keep to the oceans where Karkat had nearly lost his life. She was close by enough to invite Karkat swimming, and the two of them spent a lot of time exploring the ocean floor with Sollux flying overhead in a fit of exasperation. Aradia chose a middle ground between the main village and the place where Equius had made his home. She was constantly zipping in between Sollux's hive and Equius's, and it seemed that all the final traces of fatalism had left her. Roxy and Callie took off for the hills as well, living high up in the mountains in yet another settlement that they seemed to love.

Everything was different. Everything except for _some_ things, which never changed.

Karkat's hive remained in the same place, for one. It remained standing in the exact spot it had always been, still slightly isolated from the rest of the town, still the same as ever. Dave lived there permanently now, and the two of them hadn't had a major fight in sweeps. Nearly dying put things in perspective, apparently.

Eventually, John had decided to move out. He stayed close, though, moving his house to stand in the empty space Terezi's had used to occupy. Sollux lived immediately across from him, easily within tormenting distance. Rose and Kanaya had moved their house so it was next to the lab, and it hadn't taken long for Jane to join them. Jane was every busy with her expanding system of portals, choosing to hang close to the home base of all her portals.

Everything was different, and nothing was different, and everyone was happy.

Life buzzed along, day by day, and everyone was so caught up in exploring and forming relationships and expanding their horizons that no one really noticed how much time was passing. That is, until Dave looked at Karkat one day and said, "It's been nearly five years," and Karkat realized that he was _right._ It had been nearly five years, only a little over two sweeps, and he hadn't even noticed.

And then something had happened that had thrown things into proportion, and suddenly everything had felt a lot more real.

†††

It had all started with Dave going to Rose out of the blue, making sure that Karkat was occupied with John beforehand so he wouldn't suspect a thing.

"Dave?" Rose asked, looking to him with concern. "It's been a long time since you came to see me. Is everything okay?"

Dave fidgeted nervously. "Yeah, everything is fine."

A frown. "You don't look okay. Is something wrong with Karkat?"

"No, everything is fine," he repeated.

"Ah. So you're living in domestic bliss, is that it?"

 _Not quite as domestic as I want it to be. That's the problem._

Rose seemed to catch his hesitation. "Should I fetch Kanaya? She's your moirail whether you wish to use the term or not; perhaps she would be better suited to help you with whatever problems you're having."

"No, no!" he insisted immediately. "Look, just…" He trailed off. God, he was _really_ about to ask this. He couldn't believe himself. He was such a dorky, unironic piece of shit. "You proposed to Kanaya, right?"

Immediately Rose stiffened, and Dave knew that his hand had been tipped. "Dave. Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Can you just answer the question?" he muttered. "I'm trying to get some advice here!"

Rose smirked. "I see. Well, in that case, yes—I was the one that proposed to Kanaya."

"And you, uh, managed to alchemize her a ring?"

Her smirk widened. "Yes, I did."

Dave waited awkwardly for a moment, hoping that she would just offer to help without him having to actually ask, but she said nothing, and he realized that he was going to have to be a man about this. He was in his early twenties at this point, he could _do_ this. "Do you think you can help me figure out how to do that myself?"

"And why would you need a ring, Dave? Is there something you're planning on doing?"

Oh, _fuck_ her and her desire to antagonize everyone around her. "Seriously?"

She blinked innocently. "How can I know what kind of a ring to help you make if you don't tell me what it's for?"

Dave growled out, "I'm going to propose to Karkat! I'm going to force him to marry me even if he thinks it's the stupidest thing on the planet, so I need to figure out how to make a ring!"

"Ah." If Rose smiled any wider, the rest of her face was going to be consumed by a gaping slash of teeth. "I think I can help you with that. What were you thinking of for a design?"

Dave told her, in as short, clipped phrasing as he could, exactly what he wanted. He'd expected to be laughed at, but Rose hadn't had any problems with helping him once he got over the initial embarrassment of asking for help. Sure, he could have gone to Sollux, but he was sure that he would have had no end of teasing there. Working with Rose was painful just because of his own insecurities about doing what he was doing, but in the end he managed to design a beautiful ring, black as night and shimmering with rubies, and it was perfect.

Then had come the hard part.

†††

Karkat remembered the exact moment he'd realized that he was going to be dragged into one of the humans' miserable traditions.

He'd known that something was up for weeks. Dave had been shoving him off on John and then disappearing for hours at a time, then returning and acting like he'd never been gone. At first he'd been worried that something was going on, or that he was sneaking off to somewhere because he wasn't satisfied with his other concupiscent quadrant (i.e., Karkat himself), but when Dave returned looking just the same as when he'd left, he guessed that wasn't the case. But that begged the question—what _was_ he doing?

He puzzled over it for days, not wanting to ask just in case it was something serious that Dave wouldn't want to talk about. His patience could only last for so long, though, and it wasn't long before he started to break.

Then, just before he finally snapped and asked Dave what was going on, it happened.

One night, Dave had just randomly asked him if he wanted to go out to the cliffside. It had been late, far too late for this sort of thing, and Karkat had almost refused before he saw the earnest expression on his matesprit's face. Something was going on. And so he'd agreed, and before he had the chance to protest he was being scooped up and flown outside.

A few minutes later, they'd landed at the place where Karkat had toppled to his 'death' two sweeps prior. The atmosphere had been strangely tense. _So_ tense, and Karkat had fidgeted uncertainly as his matesprit arranged the two of them at the edge of the cliff. After that, they'd just spent some time standing around talking. The entire time Karkat had been unable to put aside his fears, though, and after just a few minutes he was buzzing with tension.

Finally, both of them decided that enough was enough.

"Look," Dave said at last, reaching out and clasping his palms to Karkat's shoulders, drawing him close until the length of his matesprit's body was pressed against him. "I've debated how I wanted to do this for a long time. Every time I started to plan it out it just felt too scripted and stiff, and after spending so much time with Rose trying to get the _physical_ components right, I didn't want to mess the whole emotional thing up."

Karkat sneered. "So you _have_ been rushing off to do something!"

"You noticed?"

"Of course I fucking noticed! You've been slipping off practically every day for _weeks_ doing jegus knows what; I've been so worried!"

Dave blinked. "Worried?"

"Yes I've been worried! I thought you were fucking unsatisfied or some shit, and running off because of it!"

He stared, looking like an antlerbeast caught in the headlights. "Oh. Oh, no—Karkat, that's not right at all!"

He'd known that it wasn't right, but hearing it from Dave himself still made relief spike through him. "Then what have you been doing?"

"I'm getting there," Dave soothed, running his palms up and down Karkat's arms. "Just _listen_ to me for a moment."

Silently, he nodded. He figured he owed his matesprit this much, at least.

"Look, Karkat—I love the shit out of you, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, of course," he said, unnerved.

"Well, ah…I've been thinking for a while that I wanted to have some way of _showing_ that I loved you more than anyone else. I want to put a mark on you, I guess, the way you put one on me all those years ago." He brushed his fingertips across the side of his shades, where Karkat's symbol was engraved in bright scarlet.

Then he _took off his glasses,_ and Karkat's eyes went wide.

"I'm going to be completely unironic here, dude. I love you. I love you more than anything else on this planet, more than anything in the history of paradox space. And I want to keep you."

Slowly, something in his subconscious was beginning to connect the dots. But Karkat's conscious mind was running slow, and he stared at Dave in bewilderment and said, "You have me."

Dave stared. Then he laughed, drawing back until there was a good foot of space between them. "I know I do. But now I want to _really_ have you, like, forever."

Karkat blinked, confused. "What?"

There were cool fingers at his wrist, then, and he realized that Dave was grabbing onto his left arm as he slowly slid to one knee. Then the human was reaching for something in his sylladex, and a heartbeat later he was holding out a little box with a delicate black ring sticking out of a pad of foam.

Karkat stared. _"What?"_

"Come on, dude," Dave chuckled, "you've seen enough human romcoms to know where this is going."

He had, but his think pan was having a hard time processing things.

Dave smiled up at him, earnest and true, with no barrier over his eyes to hide what he was really feeling. "Karkat Vantas, I'm asking you to human marry me."

Karkat's throat closed in on itself then and there. "Idiot," he rasped, "trolls don't get married to their quadrants."

Dave shrugged. "But this one does, right?"

And _gog fucking damn it_ , he was right. _Again_.

Dave plucked the black ring from its nest of foam and held it to the light of the moon. "So, Vantas? Do you want to be a Strider?"

And there were about a _thousand_ retorts bubbling on the edge of his tongue to that one— _I'm not your fucking girlfriend, don't try to steal my name,_ for one—but he was too busy crying like a wiggler fresh out of the caverns to get anything coherent out other than a rasping, _"Yes,"_ and so that was what he said.

Dave smirked. "Nailed it." And it was the _most_ unromantic thing to say under the circumstances, but then he was sliding that black band onto Karkat's finger, and the troll was staring in awe as he realized that Dave had somehow managed to etch out his own scarlet cog of time into the black material in a spattering of scarlet gemstones. It was simple but elegant, _beautiful_ , and he loved it.

"What about yours?" he inquired. "Am I supposed to figure out how to alchemize one for you?"

His idiot of a matesprit just smirked, saying, "Yep. Good luck with that one, genius."

Karkat had yelped in frustration then, lunged for Dave, but his knight was already zipping up into the air and swooping around to embrace him from behind, barking out a muffled laugh into his shoulder. "I love you, Karkat," he breathed, pressing his lips against the juncture between neck and shoulder. "I love you _so_ much, as unironic as that makes me sound."

Karkat blushed. He was glad Dave couldn't see his face. "Yeah. I pity the fuck out of you, too."

And even though they were speaking different languages, both knew that they were feeling the same thing.

†††

"Oh my god, we're so late," John gasped as they finally neared the cliffside.

"And whose fault is that, fuckass?" Karkat snapped. "You're the one that had a wardrobe malfunction at the worst possible moment!"

"Hey, I said I was sorry!" John whined. "Now come on, let's hurry!"

They did. The two of them rushed across the final remaining space between the forest and the break in the trees that led to where this disaster would take place, and then, suddenly, they were there.

Karkat froze the instant he emerged. Namely, he froze because everyone was _staring_ at him. All of the humans and trolls had gathered (along with a single cherub) for this complete dumpster fire of an event, and now all of them were staring right at him with expressions varying from irritated to amused.

Then a familiar voice rang out, and blood rushed to his cheeks.

"Way to be late for your own wedding, dude."

His head snapped up, mouth open to protest with a few choice words—but then he saw who was talking, and his mouth just ended up hanging open in shock.

The trees rustled behind him. Kanaya emerged a moment later, and then she was saying, "Oh! My goodness, we are rather late. I apologize, everyone, John had a few problems with his outfit."

John stuttered out an apology, but Karkat wasn't listening. He was too busy staring at his matesprit (or would Dave want to call him his husband after this? Humans were so weird) and wondering just _what the fuck_ Kanaya had been thinking.

"Kanaya," he growled, "you let him leave your workshop like that?"

Kanaya attempted to hide her smile and failed miserably. "He insisted upon it."

"What's wrong?" Dave called from the podium, a shit-eating grin spread across his face. "Don't like the tux, Karkles?"

He stared flatly. "You look like a traffic light."

"How do you even know what a traffic light _is?"_

He bared his teeth. "Don't fucking tease me! You're the one that showed up in a _bright fucking red_ tuxedo!"

And he had. Kanaya had made him a blindingly red outfit, the horrid color only interrupted by his black collared shirt. The entire thing was patterned with cogs that were only a slightly less hideous color of red, and it was so distinctly _Dave Strider_ that it made Karkat drop his head into his hands and groan.

Dave was still watching him with that ridiculous smirk. He said nothing further, though, which meant that he knew _exactly_ what he was thinking.

"Okay," Rose said brusquely, clapping her hands together in an attempt to hide how frazzled she was. She'd tried desperately to make the wedding as organized as possible, but it was just as much as mess as _anything_ that involved Dave and Karkat as the main participants was bound to be. "Let's get this thing going, shall we?"

After that, everything turned into a blur of movement. Kanaya took Karkat by the arm and pushed him into place, making sure he remembered _exactly_ what he was supposed to do. Down the isle, Dave was rearranged so that he was standing in the exact right position and place. Gamzee, who was acting as the minister (a really fucking horrible idea, but no one seemed to care), stood by the altar with a dopey grin on his face, bickering with Dave off and on as everyone else scrambled to find their seats. It was the most chaotic, unorganized thing Karkat had ever seen.

It _was_ pretty, though. Rose and Kanaya had done wonders with the scenery. They'd alchemized enough chairs for everyone, arranged them on both sides of the aisle (which was made up of a long stretch of white tiles settled into the grass, just proving how meticulously planned out this whole disaster had been), and put up weird pillar-like things on either side of the altar that bled into a white marble archway that curved overhead. Karkat didn't really know what all of it meant, but he was willing to go along with it for Dave.

"Ready?" John whispered in his ear. Apparently in human weddings one participant was supposed to be passed off by their lusus—but in absence of such a thing, John had decided that _he_ was going to be the one to walk with him. Actually, they'd done a _lot_ of things that weren't considered normal, judging by what Rose and Dave had said. The entire thing was kind of a mess. It was an _endearing_ mess, though, _so_ different from what Rose and Kanaya had done, and he loved it for how distinctly _Dave_ it was. Unorganized and chaotic. Just like time travel.

Karkat watched in amusement as the trolls and humans scrambled into their seats and settled down. All of them were dressed nicely (Eridan in particular stuck out like a sore thumb in one of his typical seadweller outfits), and Karkat thought with a spark of sadness that it would be a long time before they were all gathered together again.

But there was no time to think about that now.

"Okay," Kanaya announced, "we're ready to go!"

The audience settled down. At the front, near the edge of the cliff, Dave was watching him through those insufferable shades, and Gamzee was holding a book of some sort in his hand. To one side, Rose stood in a beautiful gown, and on the other, Dirk stood with his arms crossed and his chin held high. Apparently they were supposed to be, like, the best man and the best…woman? How were weddings supposed to work? No one had really been sure, seeing as all of the humans had been removed from their planet at thirteen years and never really bothered to figure out how their human weddings were supposed to work, and so they were just winging it. Winging it in a very, _very_ chaotic way.

Someone did _something,_ and then a wheezing song started up. Hideous. Completely awful on the ears. And of course, the humans could only remember the first part of the song when they'd recorded it, so it just repeated on an endless, droning loop. Gog, why were human traditions so _weird?_

"Karkat," John hissed, "let's go!" He tugged at his arm, and then they were moving.

 _This is stupid._ Karkat shoved his free hand into his pocket as he moved. He shuffled his way along the aisle, catching more than one amused glance from his fellow trolls, and he almost tried to hide his face as blood rushed to his cheeks. _This is_ so _fucking stupid._ He kept moving despite the thoughts, though, trying to focus on keeping his blush down.

And then— _curse_ his awful coordination—he tripped.

John steadied him immediately, but it had still happened, and he could hear the trolls and a few humans snickering at him.

 _Fuck. Why am I doing this, again?_

A laugh, low and familiar, sounded from the altar. Then Dave was lifting off and flying towards him, leaving his position to land in front of Karkat with a knowing smirk.

 _Oh, right—_ he's _why._

"Real graceful, Karkles," Dave chuckled. "Here, let me help you along." Then he scooped him up, ignoring an indignant protest from Rose about how this was _not_ how they were supposed to be doing this, and lifted him into the air. A sour note rang out from wherever the music was playing. Dave winced. "John, would you take care of that for me?"

John grinned. "Sure thing!" He reached out, and the next moment a flicker of wind was blasting into the CD player and knocking it into the ocean.

Rose groaned. "Oh my god."

"My wedding, my rules," Dave retorted. He flew to the altar and set Karkat down with a loving smile. And _fuck,_ he loved this human so much that it hurt to think about. _He_ was why he was putting up with this wedding garbage. "Let's get this show on the road."

Karkat glanced behind him to see that John had chosen his seat and settled down. Dave grasped his hands, smirking. They were ready to begin.

The instant Gamzee opened his mouth, Karkat knew that this had been a mistake.

"All _right,_ it's time to get our motherfucking wedding on!"

Rose stared in horror. Karkat groaned. Dave snickered, then hid the sound with a cough.

"We're all up and joined here on this fine motherfucking day to celebrate the _rad_ fucking union between my best friend and his bitchtits matesprit."

Oh no. He was going to cringe right up into the fucking _atmosphere_. He was going to cringe so hard that he'd fall into the ocean and drown _despite_ his gills.

Gamzee turned the pages of his book (it was blank, Karkat noticed) as if he were looking for something. Then his eyes lit up, and he said, "Oh, right! So, there's probably all _kinds_ of shit I'm supposed to be up and saying right here about matrimony and compatibility and all that good stuff. But I think I forgot? So, let's just get all sappy and sentimental for a good motherfucking minute and then we can get you guys all married and shit!"

Dave snorted. "Good idea, Gamzee." And he was _definitely_ not supposed to talk in the middle of the ceremony, if Rose's glare had anything to say about it.

Gamzee smirked. "Riiiight…now where was I?"

He was in the middle of completely humiliating everyone present. And then he _kept_ humiliating them, because he just _wouldn't stop fucking talking_ , and it was just all taking _too long_. But…then he looked at Dave, saw the way he was watching Gamzee with an amused expression, saw the way he was sticking his tongue out at Rose whenever she made a move like she was about to intervene, and the severity of his expression lessened. His matesprit was enjoying himself, and that was all that mattered.

"I love you," Karkat blurted out before he could stop himself, talking right over Gamzee, and the snickers he heard in response were more than worth the flushed expression on his matesprit's face.

"That just about covers it," Dave agreed. "Gamzee, care to wrap this up?"

The clown troll paused mid-sentence. Then he smirked, dopey and relaxed, and said, "I guess this is as good a place as any to up and call it quits. So, Strider, do you, uh…" And here he paused, no doubt trying to remember something from what Rose had told him to say. "Uh…do you want to be this little motherfucker's matesprit?"

"Husband," Rose hissed through her teeth. "And that's _not—"_

"Husband!" Gamzee corrected. "Do you want to be all like, his husband?"

The corners of Dave's mouth twitched. "Yeah. I really do."

"And Vantas! Karbro! Do you want to be this guy's husband?"

He glared up at his matesprit without any hint of real heat. "Unfortunately, I do."

"That's motherfucking fantastic! Look at the two of you, all adorable and shit, ready to—"

"Gamzee," Rose prompted, and her voice rang with distress. "The _ceremony."_

"Oh, right—I now pronounce you motherfucking married!"

It was probably the least romantic thing Karkat had ever heard in his entire life. Off to one side, Rose's head was in her hands, and several of the guests were tittering. But then Dave leaned forward and kissed him, unbidden by Gamzee but still an ingrained part of the ceremony, and it was suddenly the _most_ romantic thing he'd ever experienced.

Someone whooped. People clapped and cheered.

Then Karkat was smacked with a facefull of confetti as John blasted it around with his windy powers, and the entire situation went right back to intolerable.

Dave threw his head back and laughed, reached up and ruffled Karkat's hair affectionately. "Thanks for putting up with me, nubs."

Karkat snarled up at him, but he wasn't really angry. Mostly he was happy, seeing Dave so content and relaxed, even with colored paper sticking to his face and John coming up to tackle him in congratulations.

"Oh, come on, Rose!" John chirped. "It wasn't that bad!"

Rose looked like she was about to argue for a moment. But then she sighed, shaking her head from side to side, and said, "I suppose you're right. Should we usher everyone back to the lab for the reception?"

Karkat had to choke back a laugh. It just put the cherry on top of the fucking cake that the reception would be held in a labratory. He wasn't sure how human weddings normally went, but he had a feeling that this one had been a complete disaster. He loved Dave anyway, though, and he was sure that his matesprit—husband?—was content.

"Congratulations, Karkat!" Jake called, bouncing up to him with a wide grin, Dirk not far behind.

"Yeah," Dirk agreed, "good job on managing to maintain a relationship with my bro."

"Lookth like you finally made it," Sollux broke in, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "You did good, KK—I'm jutht glad that _I'm_ never going to go through that shit."

As if on cue, Feferi appeared. "Oh, Karkat, that was so beautiful! Gamzee did so well, and you and Dave looked so amazing, and I can't _wait_ to try it for myself!"

Sollux paled. "What?"

Feferi ignored him. "I'm so glad you got to do this!"

Karkat opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn't get out a single syllable before he was being batted upside the head by Eridan.

"Congrats, Kar," he said. "Good to see you fillin' your quadrants with a bunch of humans."

"Fuck off, Eridan," he snapped, and Nepeta appeared immediately to distract him, Equius at her side.

"Oh, Karkitty, I'm so happy for you!"

"Yes, it's fascinating to see a real troll-human union in person," Equius agreed.

Karkat glanced at them sideways. "Um, yeah, thanks."

There were more after that. More people coming up to him, congratulating him before slipping off to where Rose was hosting the reception. Soon enough Dave was dragging him off to the lab as well, and the two of them proceeded to spend the entire evening walking around and just _talking_ to people. Apparently this was another component of human weddings, where the wedded pair just ran around talking to their guests instead of actually getting to sit down and relax.

Really, the entire thing was stupid. If Dave hadn't wanted this, Karkat would happily have told everyone to fuck off and leave him in peace. But Dave _did_ want this, and so Karkat would go along with it to make him happy. He had an obligation to his matesprit.

As long as Dave was pleased, he thought he would be willing to endure anything.

†††

Hours later, after the last guest had fled and the cleanup had been finished, Karkat and Dave were the only ones left in the lab.

"Wow," Dave sighed, stretching his arms above his head. "That was an ordeal."

"You're the one that wanted it, fuckass," Karkat pointed out. "If it hadn't been for you, we could be peacefully sleeping back on our sleep slat right now."

"That does sound pretty good," Dave sighed, swaggering his way over to him and throwing an arm around his shoulders. "But I'm more interested in something _else_ right now."

"And what would that be, I wonder?" Karkat mocked.

"Don't joke," Dave said with a teasing smirk. "You haven't seen what I've done yet."

Immediately he was suspicious. "What the fuck did you do?"

Dave raised a brow and stepped back towards the exit to the lab. "Follow me and see, Strider."

"I did _not_ consent to changing my name!" Karkat snapped after him, but resigned himself to trailing after his matesprit as he led him outside. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm still Karkat _Vantas._ If anyone's changing their name, it's you!"

"Dave Vantas, huh?" he chuckled. "Not too shabby."

Something warm twinged in his stomach at the sound of that name, but he denied it the instant it happened. Names meant nothing to him. All that mattered was Dave.

"Here we are," Dave announced, pointing at one of Jane's window portals.

"What," Karkat snorted, "are we off to some magnificent wonderland?"

"Not exactly." Dave stepped back and gestured to the portal. "Why don't you go make sure?"

He glared, uncertain. Felt the black band resting firm against his finger, reassuring him. Then he stepped forward, letting himself fall into the portal without another moment of hesitation, and—

 _Oh, fuck…_

Karkat stared in awe at the hive towering before him, taking the familiar surroundings. This was…

"Like it?" Dave asked casually, stepping out of the portal behind him and snapping it up into his sylladex so that no one could follow. "It took me quite a few trips to complete."

Karkat shook his head in disbelief—because _this_ was the island he'd been stranded on for six months, and _that_ hive had taken the place of the tiny cabin he'd made himself all those sweeps ago. Dave had turned his nightmare into a paradise.

"Karkat? You're scaring me here. You like it, don't you…?"

He forced himself to snap out of it. "Fuck yes," he whispered. "Shit, Dave, this is…"

It was gorgeous. The hive was _gorgeous_ , all sweeping archways and clean lines and bright colors, and Karkat loved it. Even the fact that they were in his old prison couldn't make him fear it.

Dave's worried expression melted away. "Come on, then—the bedroom is simply to _die_ for." He waggled his eyebrows.

"Don't push your luck," Karkat growled, but didn't resist in the least as Dave tugged him into the entrance hall, then into the main body of the hive. It was just as beautiful on the inside, filled with furniture that he _must_ have gone to Sollux to figure out how to alchemize. The entire thing was set up like some kind of highblood vacation hive, and it made his stomach lurch with affection. He pitied Dave so much. He _loved_ him so much.

Dave didn't say anything, not yet. He just grinned back at Karkat, watching him marvel at the hive as he slowly tugged him for the stairs. The hive was two stories, Karkat soon found out, and it didn't take long to weave their way in between the rooms until they reached what they were after.

"Lady Strider," Dave teased, opening the door in front of them and gesturing into the open space.

Karkat made a show of narrowing his eyes at his matesprit as he cautiously stepped inside, and— _oh._ It was the master bedroom. The entire room was cast in a low pinkish glow (mood lighting, Dave? Really?), the light bouncing off of the furniture. There was a dresser, a chest of drawers, bedside tables, a door that no doubt led to a bathroom…but none of that was what really interested him. What interested him was the fact that there wasn't a bed. Rather, there was a plush, circular platform that stood only about two feet off the ground, the material of a soft, scarlet make.

"Went to Sollux, did you?" he breathed, attempting to confirm his suspicions.

"How else would I know what an Alternian pailing platform was supposed to look like, let alone how to alchemize it?" Dave shrugged. "It was a hell of a conversation, I'll grant you that, but…I thought you would appreciate it."

He did. He'd always hated Alternia, hated his life and what it represented. But seeing the familiar platform reminded him of his old hive, his only comfort in a desolate world, and he felt his blood pusher clench with nostalgia.

Fingertips brushed over his shoulders, down his arms. Dave's chest pressed to his back, his entire body draping over him like a blanket. The door closed, and Karkat had no clue how his matesprit had managed to reach it in his current position.

"So…" Dave purred. "You've seen enough human romcoms to know what normally happens after a wedding, right?"

Something twinged in Karkat's chest. "We didn't exactly follow tradition with the wedding," he pointed out, "getting a psychotic murder clown to flap his gums at us for half an hour and all. I don't see why we have to start now."

Dave groaned. "Come on, Karkles, don't antagonize me, here! I've been waiting all day for this shit, and I know you have too."

He had, and that was the sad part. "Oh, is this where you _impress_ me, Strider? Prove that you're a viable partner?"

"Think I've proved that more than enough times in the past few years," Dave joked crudely. "That is, unless you think there were _performance issues."_

Karkat narrowed his eyes, caught between embarrassing himself by telling Dave the truth and antagonizing him a bit more.

Unfortunately, his silence was as good as admittance. "That's what I thought," Dave purred, nuzzling into the side of his matesprit's neck. "Now are you just going to stand there, or are you going to turn around and kiss me?"

Karkat promptly chose the second option.


End file.
